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Lancashire Local Nature Recovery Strategy On Friday 16 January 2026, Lancashire County Council published the Lancashire Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS). The LNRS contains a Statement of Biodiversity Priorities and a Local Habitat Map. The National Planning Policy Framework (December 2024) sets out at Paragraph 159 “.. Where land has been identified as having particular potential for habitat creation or nature recovery within Local Nature Recovery Strategies, proposals should contribute towards these outcomes.” Planning applications submitted to Wyre, where appropriate, must consider the Lancashire LNRS. Local nature recovery strategies identify the places and habitats that are most beneficial for nature and get 15% more biodiversity units in the biodiversity metric than the same habitat created elsewhere. The Lancashire LNRS can be found here.
Biodiversity Duty
Local planning authorities (LPAs) are required by law to demonstrate how they are complying with the biodiversity duty. The duty is set out in The Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 as amended by The Environment Act 2021. The duty requires local planning authorities to meet the objective of conserving and enhancing biodiversity.
Biodiversity Duty Report
In line with the legislation, Wyre council as the Local Planning Authority has published its first consideration of how it is meeting the duty. The report describes how Wyre LPA is meeting the duty now and how it plans to meet the duty in the coming years. It is intended that the document will be updated on an annual basis, looking back at actions undertaken over the previous 12 months and ahead to the following five years. It is intended to publish the annual report as soon as possible after the 1 January base date each year.
Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG)
What is BNG?
BNG has been introduced by The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 as amended by The Environment Act 2021.
Biodiversity means ‘biological diversity’, that is the variety of all life on Earth. It includes all species of animals and plants – everything that is alive on our planet.
For the purposes of BNG, habitat is used as a proxy for biodiversity.
Therefore Biodiversity Net Gain = habitat net gain
A habitat is the natural home or environment of an animal, plant, or other organism.
The basic idea behind BNG is that the post development environment is required to be in a measurably better state than the pre-development environment.
Therefore BNG means that habitats must be left in a measurably better state than they were before the development. For developments where BNG applies (there are exclusions) it is a legal requirement that the post development habitat value must be at least 10% higher than the pre-development value (the pre-development value is known as the baseline).
For example if a site has a baseline value of 50 biodiversity units, BNG = 10% = 5 units therefore the post development biodiversity value MUST be at least 55 units.
Biodiversity value is calculated by a statutory metric – a series of Excel spreadsheets – which MUST be used to accompany those planning applications where BNG is a legal requirement.
BNG applies to major developments submitted to the LPA on or after 12 February 2024 and on or after 2 April 2024 for minor developments (note that some types of development do not need to meet the statutory requirement for BNG but will still need to be consistent with local and national planning policy).
The legal requirement to meet the minimum 10% BNG requirement can be met on-site, off-site, by purchasing biodiversity units from a habitat bank or purchasing statutory biodiversity credits from the government (which is a last resort option), or a combination of these approaches.
Guidance for Applicants
The council has produced an approved BNG Guidance for Applicants that explains BNG and the implications for submitting planning applications. The Council has also produced Emerging Learning Points. The emerging learning points will be updated as and when necessary and will be merged into the main guidance when that is updated.
BNG now applies to major and minor development unless exempted.
The initial draft guidance document underwent public consultation between February and March 2024. Revisions of this guidance have accounted for comments received during the original public consultation and has subsequently been formally approved by the Council.
Applicants for major and minor development are strongly advised to read the guidance before submitting an application.
If you have any queries about the guidance, please contact the planning policy team at planning.policy@wyre.gov.uk.
The government has also produced guidance to assist those involved in delivering BNG as landowners, applicants, local planning authorities and developers. The latest guidance for applicants was updated to reflect the validation checklist, which requires the submission of a BNG statement for applications where the statutory minimum 10% BNG applies.
BNG - Monitoring Fee
Wyre Council has approved a BNG monitoring fee which will come into effect from 1 April 2025. The fee will be payable by those developments where it is agreed that a series of monitoring reports will be submitted to the council. Typically this will be for some on-site BNG solutions (i.e. where BNG is defined as “significant”) and for planning applications where the off-site BNG solution is in Wyre.
Background to the fee can be found in the approval report.
The fee structure is arranged around the net increase in biodiversity units required to meet the statutory minimum 10% Biodiversity Net Gain. The fee is designed to cover the costs of Wyre Council and Greater Manchester Ecology Unit who are the council’s BNG advisors. The payment of the fee will require a legal agreement with the council.
| Net Gain in Biodiversity Units (BU) | Tier | Total fee (£) |
|---|---|---|
| Up to 1 BU inclusive | T1 Very Low | 4,059.01 |
| 2-5 BU inclusive | T2 Low | 6,690.63 |
| 6-9 BU inclusive | T3 Low/moderate | 9,810.46 |
| 10-20 BU inclusive | T4 Moderate | 14,929.33 |
| Over 20 BU | T5 High | 20,192.67 |
The fee will be reviewed as and when necessary, but at least annually.
Section106 Templates
To facilitate the BNG process, the council has produced two templates for s106 agreements – one for “significant” on-site BNG and one for off-site BNG where the off-site provision is in Wyre (not including sites in habitat banks). The templates are based on those produced by the Planning Advisory Service and are intended to provide applicants with a solid basis for coming to an agreement with the council. Applicants are advised to take their own legal advice before signing any legal agreement with the council.
Strategic Significance
To complete the BNG statutory metric, you need to know if the site in question (this may be the development site or the location of any off-site provision, or both) is strategically significant. Wyre council has produced an interactive map of sites considered to have HIGH strategic significance based on environmental designations and should be scored accordingly. The designations are:
- Ancient Tree Inventory
- Ancient Woodland
- Special Areas of Conservation (SAC)
- Special Protection Areas (SPA)
- Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ)
- Biological Heritage Sites (BHSs) designated by Lancashire County Council
- Sits of Special Scientific Importance (SSSIs)
- Ramsar Sites
The majority of the above sites are identified on the Wyre Local Plan 2031 Policies Map and as part of the 2024 Green Infrastructure Audit.
The approved Guidance for Applicants provides more information on applying strategic significance.
Registered Sites
The Wildlife Trust has produced a BNG map which provides a publicly accessible, spatial view of all off-site locations currently registered on the Biodiversity Gain Sites register, as published by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA). It is updated daily to reflect the most recent entries and changes to the national register.
Please note that the Council does not verify the underlying data. This tool is for visualisation and informational purposes only. Users are advised to consult the original DEFRA register to confirm data accuracy and completeness before relying on it for any purposes.
Lancashire Local Nature Recovery Strategy
What is a Local Nature Recovery Strategy?
Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) were introduced by the Environment Act 2021 to drive nature's recovery and provide wider environmental improvements. Their main purpose is to identify locations to create or improve habitat most likely to provide the greatest benefit for nature and the wider environment.
The LNRS is a tool to identify opportunities for nature recovery, which can be used to target action and funding. It is important to note that the LNRS is not a delivery plan and does not place any obligations or restrictions on landowners. It identifies the best opportunities and locations for nature recovery. However, this does not preclude nature recovery action in other locations.
Publication of the LNRS
The Lancashire LNRS was published on 16th January 2026, in accordance with the requirements of The Environment (Local Nature Recovery Strategies) (Procedure) Regulations 2023 and taking account of the results of a public consultation which concluded in August 2025.
The Statement of Biodiversity Priorities and the Local Habitat Map are available.
Further information can be found on the LCC webpage.
This web page was last updated February 2026.