If a Developer has irreplaceable habitats within the project site that suffer losses or deterioration, these fall outside of the biodiversity net gain mechanism. Being deemed to valuable to be compensated for, they cannot be calculated by the biodiversity metric tool and should be removed from the baseline.

Treatment of these habitats must comply with the policy, legislation and regulations in force at that time and bespoke compensation to address specific losses and deterioration agreed with the relevant planning authority.

Likely to be a minority case, but with reference to Irreplaceable Ancient Woodland, Ancient and veteran trees, we are working toward rejuvenating areas of Wood Pasture that link to existing Ancient and Semi-Natural Woodland within the Deciduous Woodland Priority Habitat Inventory.