Recommendation 179

The Minister for Natural Environment and Land Use agreed that where remediation involved removing contaminated soil that was beneficial to wildlife it would have a negative impact on BNG. However, she suggested many brownfield sites have low biodiversity value or will be below the de minimis threshold. 235 The Wildlife Trust disagreed, suggesting this is often “far from reality” 236 with brownfield sites commonly being successional habitats, home to a variety of rare species.