National Trust Sherborne to join the North Cotswold Biodiversity Net Gain Scheme.

I've just heard from the Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership (GLNP) that the National Trust in Sherborne will soon be joining a North Cotswold biodiversity net gain scheme. The North Cotswold BNG scheme (BGS-060226002) call themselves a natural capital broker. Make of that what you will. The North Cotswold BNG will be selling biodiversity units, the first in Gloucestershire to be put on the National Register. Presumably BNG credits in Sherborne will be available for purchase by developers.

Biodiversity is a somewhat contentious strategy whereby every development has to demonstrate that whatever they do to develop a site, there has to be a 10% biodiversity net gain as a result of it. On many occasions, this biodiversity net gain can effectively be contracted out by buying units from organisations who offer such schemes. The North Cotswold scheme, it appears, will soon offer biodiversity net gain credits utilising the land in Sherborne. I'm going to give a crude analogy. If you're building a block of flats in Cheltenham and you need to demonstrate a 10% biodiversity net gain, you can achieve that by giving this scheme some money, which will basically make a field in Sherborne more biodiverse, maybe by planting trees etc. It's probably more complicated than that, but I think simple explanations work to give you a feel for the process.

Importantly, the North Cotswold BNG scheme is a non-profit scheme that purports to put any profit back into additional nature recovery plans in the "local community". Exactly how that happens and whether we in Sherborne will benefit directly from that flow back of funds from the non-profit, we shall have to wait and see. The Brook group is a member of the GLNP so I will be asking how that gets managed.

Key questions are:

• What are the biodiversity net gains and how are they defined?
• How, specifically, does the local environment get improved by this funding?
• What is the impact on agricultural production on the estate?
• Who monitors and oversees the biodiversity net gain, which I understand needs to last for 30 years? I think it's meant to be overseen by the Cotswold District Council, but since that organisation could be dissolved in the next couple of years, where will it end up? Given the likely abolition of the CDC as the local planning authority, what written commitment exists, now, to ensure continuity of oversight regardless of which reorganisation option is chosen?
• What standards are required to be met?
• The Gain Site Register currently has limited searchability and no map-based interface, constraining public scrutiny. How will the local community track which units are allocated and to which developments?
• I assume the land will be leased by the NT to a third party to undertake the delivery of the "BNG", or the NT will contract a third party to undertake this work. How will those contracts be awarded?
• Is it reasonable for a local community like Sherborne to have visibility of what is going on? I assume that the Local Planning Authority will need annual reporting that the contractural offset is proceeding appropriately and it should be possible for a Parish Council to request to see a copy of that annual report.

I'm certainly not "anti" the principle of Sherborne as a whole benefiting from BNG offsets. But I am curious as to how it will be managed and where ultimate oversight will sit. I also have concerns about national loss of productive farmland and if that is affected by BNG offsets. At its heart, Sherborne is an ancient agricultural community. Turning it into a "bank" where developers elsewhere can offset their damage to the environment is a fundamental change of circumstance that makes me a little wary. I hope that any positive changes to the local environment place the community as a part of the bigger picture and that it is a "joined up"plan not a matter of a patch here and another patch there unrelated.