Cheshire East LPA BNG

Cheshire East is a unitary authority of 1,166 square kilometres between Greater Manchester and the Potteries. Its flat Cheshire plain is bounded to the west by the sandstone ridge and to the east by the rising Pennine foothills, with the Peak District National Park taking in the eastern fringe, in the South West Peak, where Macclesfield Forest and Wildboarclough lie below moorland on blanket peat. On the plain, Rostherne Mere is a 48-hectare National Nature Reserve and Ramsar site, up to 30 metres deep, Wybunbury Moss is a floating peat bog over a salt-subsidence basin, and the Sandbach Flashes SSSI hold inland saline pools. The Meres and Mosses of the Marches Nature Improvement Area lies south of Crewe and Nantwich, and Jodrell Bank, Alderley Edge and Tatton Park are the best-known landmarks.

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Biodiversity Net Gain became a legal requirement for major developments in England on 12 February 2024, and for small sites on 2 April 2024. Policy ENV 2 of the council’s Site Allocations and Development Policies Document requires a net gain in line with national policy, supported by a biodiversity metric calculation. The council adopted an Ecology and Biodiversity Net Gain Supplementary Planning Document in July 2024 (reported to its Environment and Communities Committee on 18 July 2024). The council’s BNG funding has already gone into projects such as Cheshire Wildlife Trust’s Saltersford Farm, where 19.84 hectares of former maize fields beside the River Dane were restored to hay meadow, ponds, woodland and scrub, partly with S106 BNG money from Cheshire East.

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Nutrient neutrality is the second constraint in parts of the borough. Policy ENV 2’s supporting text names Rostherne Mere Ramsar (nitrogen and phosphorus) and the West Midlands Mosses SAC, and Natural England’s March 2022 nutrient advice covers Cheshire East for both. The Cheshire and Warrington Local Nature Recovery Strategy 2025-2035, led by Cheshire West and Chester with Cheshire East, Warrington and the Peak District National Park Authority, will steer where off-site gains are placed.