Shropshire LPA BNG

Shropshire Council is a unitary authority covering the county outside Telford and Wrekin, on the Welsh border. In the south and west the Shropshire Hills National Landscape takes in the Long Mynd, the Stiperstones, Wenlock Edge, the Clee Hills and The Wrekin, with two Special Areas of Conservation (The Stiperstones and The Hollies, and Downton Gorge) and 73 SSSIs in the hills area. The River Severn enters from Wales and runs through Shrewsbury. In the north, the flat plain around Ellesmere is the "Shropshire Lakeland" of meres and mosses, protected as the Midland Meres and Mosses Ramsar site, and Fenn’s, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses National Nature Reserve is a large raised bog straddling the Welsh border near Whitchurch.

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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. Shropshire Council states that all non-exempt development must achieve at least a 10% net gain, using the statutory metric. It has no adopted figure above 10% and no BNG Supplementary Planning Document: its 2016 to 2038 Local Plan, whose draft policy DP13 would have required at least 10%, was withdrawn in 2025 after the Inspectors’ concerns. The Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin Local Nature Recovery Strategy was prepared jointly and sets 16 local priorities and 51 actions, and units in its opportunity areas gain additional value in the metric.

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Nutrient pollution in the River Clun is the main constraint. The Clun is a Special Area of Conservation in the south-west, and Natural England’s advice of 16 March 2022 means new development that adds wastewater to the catchment must show it will not add phosphate. Natural England has since said the Clun needs a restoration plan before nutrient neutrality measures can be used to allow housing, so a scheme near Bishop’s Castle or Clun can face both the nutrient test and BNG.