Agenda item

Report of the Director - Neighbourhoods

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer and the Principal Policy Planner presented an update to the Group about hedges and hedgerows in the Borough.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer explained that the Council had passed a Motion to protect and enhance hedgerows in the Borough of Rushcliffe and had requested that a review of the legal and policy framework be conducted.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer said that the legal and policy framework that was within the control of the Council sat largely within two areas, being the Rushcliffe Local Plan, as part of the Core Strategy and Local Plan Part 2, and the Hedgerow Regulations, which identified hedgerows which were important and to which the Council could apply notice that they need to be retained and required application to remove. The Ecology and Sustainability Officer noted that there was a strict definition of which hedges could be covered which did not include garden hedgerows and required a certain number of species to live in it or for it to have historical importance.

The Principal Policy Planner referred to the Local Plan Core Strategy policy 17 which sought through planning applications to achieve an increase in biodiversity as a result of new development and also to ensure that new development provided new biodiversity features and improved existing biodiversity features, which included hedgerows.

In relation to the Local Plan Part 2 policy 38, the Principal Policy Planner said that this identified specific biodiversity areas within the Borough and if planning applications were submitted within those areas, it gave the Council the mechanism to seek specific types of improvements to biodiversity, including through hedgerows.

In relation to the mapped biodiversity opportunity areas, the Principal Policy Planner said that they covered a significant portion of the Borough, including around East Leake and Stanford Hall, and provided a description of what was there and what could be improved.

In relation to Planning Applications, the Principal Policy Planner said that consultation with the Ecology and Sustainability Officer and the Landscape Officer would take place for relevant planning applications, for advice on what features the Council should seek to retain and on any potential bio diversity enhancements it should try to achieve.

The Principal Policy Planner advised that the Council sought to retain hedgerows as much as possible where they contributed to the character of an area or where they provided biodiversity asset. He said that whilst it was not always possible to protect them, for example where their removal was required to facilitate access to a site, the Council would seek to negotiate replacement within the development scheme and to achieve a net gain.

The Ecolgy and Sustainability Officer explained that the Environment Act 2021 contained a legal requirement for biodiversity net gain through land planning, and although this element had not as yet been enacted it was expected to be by November 2023.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer said that biodiversity net gain required that an environment be in a measurably better state than it was before development with the requirement that some bio diversity should be provided within the development. If the same amount of biodiversity could not be achieved after development, then another site needed to be improved. He explained that Natural England had developed a metric to measure biodiversity pre and post development and the legislation would require that a minimum of 10% net gain be provided as measured by the Natural England metric.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer explained that the net gain needed to be provided in three ways, for general habitats, for hedgerows or lines of trees and for riversides, He said that if there were pre-existing hedgerows on a site there would need to be 10% more in quantity or quality post development.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer said that the Council currently sought to achieve a 10% net gain where possible but that it was not a legal requirement for developers to do so at the moment.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer confirmed that the Council did not have a baseline of the amount or condition of hedgerows in the Borough, however, an estimation of hedgerows across the UK has been produced by a UK science group and the Council was looking to purchase that data for the Borough. He said that some on the ground verification would be required.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer said that the Environment Act required that a monitoring scheme be put in place for bio diversity net gain, and that the Council would need to submit five yearly reporting on how much had been achieved. He said that the Council currently recorded all hedgerow removal notices and instances where hedgerow retention notices were issued.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer explained the Council offered tree grants currently which could be widened to include hedgerow planting and also offered biodiversity grants through the Nature Conservation Strategy which provided some hedgerow support, which could be increased.

The Chairman noted that domestic hedgerows were exempt from the legislation. The Ecology and Sustainability Officer explained that a domestic hedgerow was defined as the boundary to a (domestic) property even it if was on the edge of field, if it was away from a domestic property then it would be covered, if over a certain length.

The Chairman referred to enforcement of the legislation and thought that it would be difficult to manage

Councillor J Stockwood referred to the Local Plan Policy and asked whether the Council thought it successful. The Principal Policy Planner said that the monitoring indicators for the Plan were reported through the annual monitoring report but were not specific to hedgerows. The Ecology and Sustainability Officer added that success was attained by achieving measures as set out in the Local Plan, and that any measures had to meet requirements of planning legislation. He hoped that the new legislation would provide a mechanism to enable the Council to be tighter in its requirements and require measurable evidence of achievement, for new applications.

Councillor J Stockwood referred to the Council making its green belt plan, tree preservation and greenbelt information publicly available and the Service Manager Economic Growth and Property confirmed that work was taking place to complete this piece of work.

Councillor J Stockwood enquired about the Council providing grants for hedgerows and the Ecology and Sustainability Officer confirmed that the Council spent £12.5k on trees. Councillor J Stockwood suggested spending the same on hedgerows and increasing the nature strategy conservation group grants from £5k to £10k.

Councillor Butler asked about monitoring of new developments and if there had been any situations where biodiversity net gain had not been achieved and how robust could the Council be in requiring that it be put in place. The Ecology and Sustainability Officer explained that the Council had only been applying biodiversity net gain requirements since 2022 and as such no developments had completed yet. Under the new legislation, legal agreements between the Council and developers would need to be in place through S106 or conservation covenants. He said that the Government had not set our possible sanctions as yet, but these were expected early 2023.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer confirmed that there had been instances where hedges had been removed without notification and as such the Council had put in place a requirement that they be replaced.

Councillor Way referred to requirements about biodiversity net gain under the new legislation and the Ecology and Sustainability Officer confirmed that this could be provided offsite but would need to be in a better condition or of a greater amount.

Councillor Way asked whether the Council could apply conditions on the amount of hedge that could be removed, to assist in providing more joined up wildlife corridors. The Principal Policy Planner said that this would need to be considered on a case by case basis.

Councillor Way suggested including hedging plants in the tree scheme as she thought that residents who would not wish to plant a tree in their garden may be open to planting a hedging plant.

Councillor Way suggested including Councillors in the gathering of hedgerow information as they may have awareness of what was in their locality. The Ecology and Sustainability Officer agreed that this would be helpful. He said that there was a standard methodology for assessing hedgerows and training on it could be provided once the Council had established a baseline of hedgerows within the Borough.

Councillor Phillips asked whether new roads would be included for biodiversity net gain in the new legislation and the Ecology and Sustainability Officer said that it was expected that they would if defined as a national infrastructure project, although this part of the legislation would not become active for five years.

The Ecology and Sustainability Officer said that under the new legislation biodiversity net gain would need to be maintained for 30 years and monitored for 30 years by the developer. The evaluation of net gain would be assessed by a professional ecologist and then verified by the Council. He said that the Council would need to have a system in place to monitor developments over these timescales.

The Chairman asked that an update be brought back to the Group when the legislation had been enacted. He noted that REPF may offer opportunity for bids for funding to establish hedgerows.

The Group agreed that ‘enforcement’ be added as a requirement to the first recommendation and that ‘review of the website hedgerow protection information’ be included in the second recommendation

It was RESOLVED that Growth and Development Scrutiny Group:

a)    Requested a future Scrutiny item to be presented with details of requirements for methodology for the monitoring, enforcement and reporting of Biodiversity Net Gain.

b)    Reviewed current advice about the management and maintenance of hedges and suggested additional promotion opportunities and groups to engage with and that the website be reviewed to ensure hedgerow protection information was up to date.