Buying biodiversity net gain units is not complicated with the right support.
You send a completed statutory biodiversity metric, or a site location and red-line plan if you are earlier in the process.
Your requirement is checked against what we hold: habitat types, distinctiveness, trading rules and spatial multiplier.
Unit types and quantities, multiplier applied, price per unit and total. Valid for a stated period.
Optional. Hold specific units while your application is determined, against a deposit that comes off the final price.
Sale agreement, units allocated on the national register, evidence sent to you. We help complete your biodiversity gain plan and update your metric, so you have everything you need to discharge the condition.
The most useful thing you can send is a completed statutory biodiversity metric, because it tells us exactly which unit types and how many you need. If you do not have one yet, a site location and red-line boundary is enough for an indicative answer.
You will get an acknowledgement the same working day, from a named person who stays with your enquiry.
An ecologist checks your requirement against what is available. That means confirming the habitat types work under the trading rules, including whether trading up opens an option you had not considered. It also means working out the spatial risk multiplier between your site and the bank, and flagging anything that might attract a challenge from your planning authority.
If we cannot meet your requirement properly, this is the stage where we tell you, not three weeks later.
Quotes show the unit types and quantities, the spatial risk multiplier applied, the price per unit and the total. The full cost is set out at the start, and nothing appears later.
Quotes normally hold for three months. In a market where unit prices move, that is a useful thing to be able to put in an appraisal.
Optional, and worth taking if your application is still under determination. A reservation agreement holds specified units for an agreed period against a deposit.
We recommend it particularly where you have a large requirement or need a rare habitat type. Those are the units most likely to be gone by the time your decision comes through, and the hardest to replace at short notice.
How the deposit works: it is charged against the reservation and deducted from the final price when you complete. It is not refundable. If the reservation period runs out without you completing, the deposit is retained and the units go back on sale.
You are paying to take units off the market while your application is determined. The period and the amount are agreed with you in writing before anything is paid, so you can size it against your own planning timetable.
We handle the sale agreement and the coordination around it.
On completion we allocate your units to your development on the national biodiversity gain sites register and send you the allocation evidence your planning authority will ask for when they approve your biodiversity gain plan. We help you complete that gain plan and update your metric, so you have everything you need to discharge the condition.
Nothing further is required from you. The bank is secured for at least 30 years through a section 106 agreement or a conservation covenant, and the duty to create, manage, monitor and report sits with the bank operator and landowner, evaluated by the local authority or the responsible body, never by you.
We publish updates from the banks on the blog and on social media, and clients can visit the site their units came from by arrangement. We hold open days, professional development sessions and other events regularly, to celebrate the work being done at the habitat banks.
Development in England must deliver a minimum 10% biodiversity net gain, measured with the statutory biodiversity metric and secured for at least thirty years. It has been mandatory for major development since February 2024 and for minor development since April 2024.
Nationally significant infrastructure projects come into scope in November 2026, at the same 10%, with no exemptions.
For planning applications made on or after 6 August 2026, three things changed. Sites with a red line boundary of 0.2 hectares or less are exempt, unless on-site priority habitat is negatively affected, which takes a large share of small residential schemes out of scope altogether. Genuinely temporary developments of five years or less are exempt where the land is reinstated. And the separate self-build and custom-build exemption has been removed, so those schemes now need to qualify under one of the general exemptions or comply like anyone else.
Applications made before 6 August continue under the previous rules. Section 73 applications made after that date follow the new ones. If you are not sure which side of it you fall, send us the red line and we will tell you.
Yes, since 6 August 2026. Minor developments no longer have to demonstrate that on-site delivery is not feasible before looking off site, so on-site and registered off-site units can be considered side by side.
Major developments still work through the full mitigation hierarchy, so on-site delivery has to be properly tested first.
Statutory biodiversity credits are the government's last resort, deliberately priced well above the private market so that they act as a backstop rather than a route.
Buying registered off-site units from a habitat bank is almost always materially cheaper, and it puts the habitat somewhere with a real relationship to your scheme. If you are being pushed towards statutory credits, it is worth a second opinion first.
Yes. The metric applies a spatial multiplier: units in the same local planning authority or National Character Area as your site count for full value, and units further away are discounted, so you need more of them.
There are also trading rules on habitat type, so the loss of a distinctive habitat generally cannot be offset with a low-distinctiveness one. Both affect how many units you actually need to buy, which is why the cheapest headline price per unit is not always the cheapest solution.
it is wise to consider BNG early in the process, our experts can save you money by helping you to make judicious decisions about how to use the land. Our deep understanding of the legislation and ecology can make a real difference to your bottom line. We can offer indicative pricing at any stage of your project.
We cannot change a metric once it has been submitted. What we can do, if you come to us early, is help shape the layout to reduce what is lost, and look at the options the trading rules leave open. A conversation at appraisal stage costs nothing.
From a complete metric to a written quote is normally two working days. From accepted quote to allocated units depends mostly on your side — how fast contracts are turned around and whether planning is determined.
Once payment is received we allocate your units within two working days. The allocation is normally live on the biodiversity gain sites register within one to six weeks.
We do not publish a price list, because there are so many variables at play — the types and quantities of each habitat needed, and the distance of the development site from the habitat bank among them. What we will say is that we price competitively, and that we will send you a full quote on receipt of your metric.
That quote holds nothing back. You get the unit types and quantities, the spatial risk multiplier applied and the price per unit.
The site location, and either your completed statutory metric or enough detail on the site and the scheme for us to estimate it. For nutrient credits, the catchment and the number of units.
Attach the metric to the enquiry form or email it to us. Either way we will come back with a price and availability.
Normally you will not pay anything until after planning permission is granted, so if your application is refused you are under no obligation to pay for anything.
The only exception is if you have reserved units. A reservation deposit is not refundable: if the period expires without completion, it is retained and the units are released. So it is worth setting the period against a realistic view of your determination date, and telling us if that date moves.
We allocate registered units to your specific development, provide the evidence your local planning authority needs for the biodiversity gain plan, and handle the registration and the legal steps on the unit side. We will do the bulk of the paperwork and be there to support you when you need it.
The thirty-year management and monitoring obligation sits with the habitat bank operator and the landowner. Once the units are allocated and secured, your obligation is discharged.
It is not your problem, and that is one of the main reasons to go off site rather than deliver on your own land. Once your units are allocated on the biodiversity gain sites register and your gain plan is approved, your biodiversity obligation is discharged.
The thirty-year duty to create, manage, monitor and report on that habitat sits with whoever entered the section 106 agreement or conservation covenant on the bank. If the habitat underperforms, that is who the responsible body or planning authority pursues. Nobody comes back to you, and you are not funding a remediation years after the scheme completed.
Yes. A small purchase gets the same written quote and the same care over the paperwork as a large one, and it is often quicker because there is less to check.
Check first whether you need units at all. The August 2026 changes took a lot of small schemes out of scope and brought some self-build and custom-build schemes in. If you are not sure where you stand, get in touch, and we'll let you know.
Not in the sense of listing whatever is on the market and taking a cut. We work with a network of habitat banks that our own ecologists have assessed, and we only put a site in front of you if it suits your requirement. Some we manage ourselves; with others we work alongside the operator. Either way the site has met our standard before you hear about it, and the thirty-year obligation never lands on you.
We work closely with every habitat bank we sell from, we do as much of the paperwork as we possibly can for you, and we take the organisation off your desk.
Yes. In affected catchments, new residential development still has to demonstrate nutrient neutrality before permission can be granted.
The Planning and Infrastructure Act 2025 introduced Environmental Delivery Plans and the Nature Restoration Fund, which over time will provide a strategic catchment-scale route with a levy in place of scheme-by-scheme mitigation. That transition is under way rather than complete. Until an EDP covers your catchment, private credits remain the practical route to unlocking a stalled site. There is more on our nutrient mitigation page.
Where credits exist, the constraint is availability in your particular catchment rather than process, because the calculation is comparatively simple. Tell us the site and we will tell you what your options are.
Lots of our sites host open days, professional development opportunities and events. Get in touch and we will let you know what is coming up.