Biodiversity reports

Access to nature is of vital importance for the health and well-being of residents and visitors, supporting mental and physical health. Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole is an area of high nature value but access to green spaces is unequal, and biodiversity is generally declining across the UK and within the area.

The 2025 report outlines the actions taken by us to comply with the Biodiversity Duty under the Environment Act 2021.

It presents our first report on biodiversity and a summary of monitoring, reporting and our actions for delivery for nature recovery. These plans will ensure nature is considered fully, declines are reversed and that access to nature is provided. It will support the greening of our urban environment and are part of the work as foundation level Nature Towns.

Biodiversity Net Gain report

Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) is a planning policy requirement under the Environment Act 2021, mandating that developments in England must deliver at least a 10% net gain in biodiversity. This is achieved by enhancing or creating habitats either on-site or off-site, measured using the Defra Biodiversity Metric

The enhanced biodiversity duty requires us to publish a report that includes a summary of actions taken to comply with the biodiversity duty, how we intend to comply with the biodiversity duty in the next reporting period, actions carried out to meet biodiversity net gain obligations and how the biodiversity net gain obligations will be met in the next reporting period.

Since adoption, in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole there has been:

• Biodiversity Gain Plans approved, of these, 2 have achieved 10% net gain on site; the other 14 off-site through purchasing units
• The use of off-site units mean that 2.44 area habitat units have been bought, and 0.22 hedgerow units

Biodiversity report

The first Biodiversity report provides a summary of various work across different teams that support biodiversity within Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole, work in partnerships, key measures on specific species along with future actions and priorities.

Summary of high-level corporate actions:

• governance review of the current council Decision Impact Assessment tool for sustainability to improve accountability and decision making for climate and nature
• creation of a nature dashboard to complement the existing climate and sustainability online tool to track and report on greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage
• the Planning Advisory Service have chosen Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole as one of its pilot areas for use of a nature recovery toolkit for local authorities, this will help to align green efforts across departments and services, look across other plans and strategies to help streamline benefits and provide a clearer understanding of how to deliver change, funding and cost-saving opportunities
• creation of a habitat banking mechanism and improvements at 3 BCP Council owned sites for nature
• develop partnerships for delivery and greater engagement with communities on nature recovery to lead to higher standard Nature Towns accreditation

Green Infrastructure strategic framework, action plan and delivery

We have a range of strategies and policies in place that support nature recovery and the ecological emergency. These are summarised in the Green Infrastructure Strategic Framework.

The Green Infrastructure Strategic Framework draws together all of the above policies and strategies and then aligns them to various delivery mechanisms:

• financing nature and a vehicle for Biodiversity Net Gain
• Nature Towns and Cities is the accredited scheme that aims to get more people time in nature close to home, in greener, thriving towns and cities, millions of people living in urban areas lack vital access to nature and green spaces close to home, yet evidence shows it makes us healthier, more connected and more resilient
• a new nature recovery delivery group is being formed for Dorset, with the creation of urban and rural nature forums

The Action Plan summarises key work and creates an investible pipeline of projects delivered at a range of scales, from trees on a corner of a street to multi-partner programmes at landscape scale.