Biodiversity and planning
As a Local Planning Authority (LPA), Stroud District Council has a statutory duty to ensure that any new development within the district conserves and enhances biodiversity. This involves ensuring that development will safeguard and improve important sites, habitats and species which are present across the district.
Legislation and Planning Policy
In addition to the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, there is a complex range of legislation and policy guidance derived from international, national, and local programmes which protect and enhance biodiversity.
For example, the National Planning Policy Framework sets out the principles that must be applied when determining applications and policy ES6 providing for biodiversity and geodiversity of the Stroud District Council Local Plan (adopted 2015) sets the local policy framework.
Application process
Please refer to our make a planning application page which provides guidance and details of the documents required to support your application. Validation requirements should also be followed, as these will help to identify what supporting information will be required, including the need for any ecology surveys and reports and Biodiversity Net Gain assessments. However, it should not be assumed that, because an application has been validated, that there will not be further queries or requests for additional information as part of the assessment of the application.
Assessing the likely ecological impacts of a development is often complicated, requiring specialist skills, and it is therefore recommended that professional ecological expertise is commissioned if protected species, designated sites, and biodiversity net gain requirements have been identified. This will ensure that all the necessary surveys and assessments have been carried out; and that suitable mitigation, compensation, biodiversity net gain and species-specific enhancements has been designed into your scheme before an application is submitted.
The Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM) provides a professional directory of qualified, regulated ecologists which can be found at https://cieem.net/i-need/about-our-members/members-directory/
The level of assessment required will vary from a simple biodiversity survey to a complex ecological assessment as part of an Environmental Impact Assessment including a Habitat Regulations Assessment (HRA) under the Habitat Regulations 2017 where development is likely to have an effect on a European Site
A Preliminary Ecological Assessment (PEA) and/or UKHab Survey will be required for most applications, particularly if there are features of biodiversity importance on or adjacent to the site and if you are required to delivery Biodiversity Net Gain. A Bats and Birds Buildings Survey may only be needed for householder application or barn conversion if the development has a small footprint. It is also important to recognise that there are seasonal constraints to surveying some types of species and habitats, and that they can only be surveyed at certain times and months of the year in suitable weather conditions and using nationally recognised standards and methodology.
Quite often further species - specific surveys (Phase 2 ecology surveys) are identified within an initial Preliminary Ecological Assessment. Failure to undertake these further surveys can result in lengthy and costly delays in determining an application (e.g., by missing the requisite survey months, resulting in the scheme having to be withdrawn until the following season) and may potentially result in the application ultimately being refused. In addition, depending on the species, site and potential impacts, surveys are only valid for 12-24 months. The CIEEM advice note on the lifespan of ecological reports (April, 2019) should be referred to for further guidance.
Where a proposal has the potential to affect the Severn Estuary SPA/SAC/Ramsar, Rodborough Common SAC, Cotswold Beechwoods SAC, (and other European sites in the vicinity), SDC expects the applicant’s ecological consultant to submit a Shadow HRA (sHRA) for review. Should SDC find the report sufficiently comprehensive then this will be adopted as the Council’s HRA. If the Council finds the shadow HRA to be insufficient, the applicant will be advised to revise the shadow HRA to ensure it is sufficiently comprehensive and considers all Likely Significant Effects (LSE), and subsequently to this initial assessment to devise appropriate mitigation/compensation to reduce LSE.
Please refer to our strategic HRA approach to mitigate recreation impacts on these designated sites.
It should be noted that an application site does not have to be located within the designation to require a sHRA.
Please see government guidance on when and Environmental Impact Assessment is required.
• The periods of the year indicated in the following table are required to give the most reliable survey results. The application may not be valid if supporting surveys are undertaken at inappropriate times of year.
• Surveys which are conducted outside of the optimal survey period may be unreliable. Negative results obtained by conducting surveys outside of the optimal survey period should not be interpreted as the target species being absent, and further survey work during the optimal survey season may be required. An application or ecological report may not be considered valid until survey data from the optimal survey period is obtained and provided.
• Surveys should be carried out by suitably qualified and experienced ecologists. If undertaking surveys requires the disturbance, capture or handling of a protected species, the surveys should only be undertaken by a suitably licensed ecologist/professional.
• Surveys for species can also be weather dependent. It may be necessary to delay surveys or carry out multiple surveys if the weather is not suitable. Surveys carried out in unsuitable weather conditions may produce inaccurate results.
• Absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence. If a species is not recorded as present, it does not necessarily mean that the species is absent from the site, or that the species’ habitats on site are not protected.
• Existing information held by Local Biological/Environmental Records Centres may be useful or required to inform surveys.
• Surveys should adhere to established and published national or local methodologies.
• Further information regarding surveys may be found at https://cieem.net/.
Guidance for ecological survey seasons by species/habitat
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