GMCA - DaRTS Lot 1 - NetGain Biodiversity - Greater Manchester (GMCA 847)

Tender description

Background The Joint Development Plan “Places for Everyone” is now a material planning considering and requires a 10% net gain in biodiversity. The government has confirmed that developers in England will be required to deliver 10% “Biodiversity Net Gain” from January 2024 onwards when building new housing, industrial or commercial developments The government has also produced (26 /10/23)draft template and guidance: The biodiversity gain plan: draft template and guidance - Land use: policies and framework (blog.gov.uk) Additional funding has been provided by the Government to the LPAs and GMCA. The funding is being used by the Greater Manchester Ecology Unit (GMEU) to: • Pilot BNG on planning applications across Greater Manchester (Ecologist role) • to establish monitoring and reporting mechanisms for recording BNG delivery, and to develop a GM marketplace for sites which are available to provide off-site BNG (Data Manager role and development of IT architecture) • to promote and explain BNG to developers and their agents (Ecologist role) • to provide specialist advice and training to planning officers on BNG (Ecologist role) • to advise private habitat bank providers and potential providers (Ecologist role) A 2nd tranche of funding will be utilised by GMEU to recruit a monitoring officer. The unit have limited resources to take on new work and must prioritise planning application consultations and appeals. Project management arrangements A small Project team will be established to oversee project steering and completion comprising a representative from GMEU and GMCA. The Contractor will be responsible for project managing the completion of the specified tasks. Areas where support is required There are three areas where additional capacity is required (supported flexibly through a consultancy), these are listed in priority order: 1. Guidance, advice and support on how to set up habitat banks as an LPA - building on build on work undertaken by the GMCA: https://www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk/media/4244/gmca-bng-guidance-update_250221-final-edited.pdf and the latest government guidance and associated regulations. 2. Development of a monitoring strategy and then provision of site survey staff to assess BNG sites, staff to be hosted with GMEU: a. Monitoring strategy – high level strategy/guidelines b. greater detail with specific sites identified 3. Support for site survey work (peak time spring to autumn) to free up GMEU capacity to process planning application.