An Oxfordshire council is making renewed efforts to ensure developers who build in the north of the county contribute to improving the natural environment.

Cherwell District Council’s executive committee approved the 2020-2022 Community Nature Plan and its approach to addressing the council’s statutory biodiversity duty.

The plan sets out a vision to ‘work with partners to protect and enhance the region’s natural environment for its intrinsic value, the services it provides, the health and wellbeing of people; its contribution to climate change adaptation and resilience, and the economic prosperity that it brings’.

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Its key purpose is to ensure the council meets its statutory biodiversity duty under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities (NERC) Act 2006, a duty that will be strengthened by the Environment Bill.

Cherwell has agreed that housing and development must achieve a 'minimum of 10 per cent biodiversity net gain', meaning habitats for wildlife must be left in a better state than before building.

Conservative councillor Andrew McHugh said: “Does this plan deliver everything I want? No. Is it a good start, are we on our way? Yes.

“This is our foot in the door, we need to actually hold the developers' feet to the fire and say ‘you will make biodiversity gains’.

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“That doesn’t just mean swift boxes, that doesn’t just mean bat boxes, that means the natural wildlife corridors are still maintained in terms of hedgerows etc. Are we going to achieve all of this in the first year? Probably not – but we will have a good go.

“We don’t own the environment, we hold it in trust for future generations, and this is Cherwell District Council stating its intention to look after the environment for future generations.”

The council will also work with projects and partners such as Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) and Wild Oxfordshire to help it protect and enhance the district’s natural environment and help to contribute to 'healthy outcomes for people and wildlife'.

But Independent councillor John Broad raised some issues about the way developers are calculating biodiversity gain and called for the council’s own ecologists and consultants to carry out evaluations instead.

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He said: “The metric presently used is produced by the developer or their consultants and it’s obvious that if the land is shown to be genuinely barren of any biodiversity prior to the development, it might be possible to add a few trees, swift boxes etc to suggest the 10 per cent gain has been achieved.

“This is in spite of covering the land in concrete. Note these studies never include the insect life or condition of the earth.”

Examples include the Great Wolf Lodge planning application where it was suggested the proposed Chesterton site was ‘low grade rough grassland’.

He added: “I request that the evaluations for pre- and post- biodiversity be carried out only by the council officers or consultants hired by this council or the county council and never by the developers. This council needs many more ecologists to keep on top of these future applications.”