New Forest LPA BNG

New Forest District Council is the planning authority for the part of the district outside the National Park, which occupies the central portion. The area outside the Park is organised around three areas: Totton and the Waterside, the South Coastal Towns, and the Avon Valley and Downlands. The Lower Test Nature Reserve at Totton, 160 hectares of floodplain meadow, marsh and reedbed, carries Ramsar, SSSI and SPA status, and the River Avon through Ringwood and Fordingbridge is part of the Avon Valley Ramsar site and the River Avon System SSSI. Lymington town is in the district council’s planning area, not the National Park’s: the Authority handles only peripheral parts of the Lymington and Pennington parish, such as Upper Pennington, Gordleton, Buckland Rings and the Pennington Marshes.

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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. The council had already asked for it: since July 2020, when its Local Plan 2016-2036 Part 1 was adopted, major development has had to deliver a minimum 10% enhancement. The council has not adopted a BNG Supplementary Planning Document, and its list of adopted SPDs covers other topics such as parking, air quality and climate change. The Place Local Plan review, with a call for sites completed at the end of 2024, says there are opportunities to exceed 10%.

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Off-site delivery is often needed, and the council has run a call for projects inviting landowners to put forward land for biodiversity gain, nutrient mitigation or both. Nutrient neutrality applies on two fronts: nitrates in the Solent catchment, which covers Totton and the Waterside and the South Coastal Towns, and phosphates in the Hampshire Avon catchment, which covers the Avon Valley and Downlands. The council publishes a list of credit providers for each.