Select committee: Built Environment Committee
Conclusion 178
2nd Report - The impact of environmental regulations on development
Published 21 Sep 2023
Built Environment Committee The impact of environmental regulations on development All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
Liz Hart told the committee that the biodiversity net gain (BNG) requirement is “putting developers off brownfield sites”. 233 Remediation of a brownfield site, such as removing contaminated soil, can have a negative impact on biodiversity irrespective of any benefits from the removal of contaminants. If the same BNG metric applies to greenfield and brownfield sites, there is no incentive to fund remediation: a developer risks making a substantial financial outlay to remediate a site only to result in potentially significant negative BNG with further investment then being required on mitigation. We heard that the development of brownfield sites may depend on larger developers building on greenfield land to create a surplus of BNG credits. 234
From: Built Environment Committee, 2nd Report - The impact of environmental regulations on development, 21 September 2023
Government response
A response document is linked to this report, dated 12 December 2023. Response attribution to this conclusion has not been verified. Read the response document ↗