The Importance of 'Strategic Significance'

'Strategic significance’ is an important part of the Biodiversity Metric (external link) scoring approach. The ‘strategic significance’ score is a landscape scale factor, which gives additional unit value to habitats that are located in preferred locations for biodiversity and other environmental objectives.

Whether you are a developer looking to build on land, or a landowner looking to create a Habitat Bank, it is important to find out whether the land you are interested in has a 'strategic significance' uplift element, and then correctly apply that uplift in the Biodiversity Metric.

Areas of 'strategic significance' are set locally. It is anticipated that the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) (external link) will establish the areas of 'strategic significance', but our local LNRS will not be in place until sometime in 2025.

However, in the meantime, the Biodiversity Metric User Guide (external link) confirms that local authorities can specify alternative documents for assigning 'strategic significance'. 

'Strategic Significance' in East Cambridgeshire

From 1 May 2024, and until the LNRS is adopted for our area, applicants completing the Biodiversity Metric should use the Interim Nature Recovery Network for East Cambridgeshire (PDF) report to determine whether or not a 'strategic significance' uplift needs to be applied. The report identifies nine Priority Areas across East Cambridgeshire. Each area is different in character and may ultimately produce very different opportunities in terms of habitats and land uses. However, collectively the overall network of nine Priority Areas identify the best and most important opportunities for a Nature Recovery Network across East Cambridgeshire.

In the report, maps identify the boundaries of each of the nine Priority Areas. However, if you are uncertain whether your land falls in or out of a Priority Area, or perhaps is partially in a Priority Area, then please contact the Council and we will provide you with a detailed GIS extract for the area of interest which will clearly show the boundary of the Priority Area.

If your land falls in one of the nine Priority Areas then, in accordance with the Biodiversity Metric User Guide, the land should be scored 'High' in the strategic significance category if one of the following two scenarios apply:

• if your project delivers habitat creation in line with the Priority Area in which it falls, strategic significance can be recorded as high in the post-intervention sheets
• if your land falls within a Priority Area and is of an existing habitat important to that Priority Area, strategic significance should be recorded as high in the baseline

The category of 'Low' should be used if the land to which you are interested in does not fall within one of the nine Priority Areas or does fall in a Priority Area but does not meet one of the above scenarios.

The category of 'Medium' should never be used, because the Council has identified a suitable document for assessing 'strategic significance'. The 'Medium' category is therefore not applicable in East Cambridgeshire.

We have not defined any non-site specific habitat types of local ecological importance, therefore to determine whether the 'High' or Low' category is to be used in the BNG Metric, please only refer to the Priority Areas identified and mapped.

Implications for Developers

In simple terms, if the land on which you intend to build on is within an area of strategic significance, then it is possible you will have to provide a greater degree of BNG than would otherwise be the case. This is because you are at greater risk of higher biodiversity losses as a consequence of the development. This does not mean you must always avoid land in areas of strategic significance, though ecologically and financially it may be better to identify development land away from areas of strategic significance.

If you are a developer and are seeking to provide off-site BNG, then locating such off-site BNG within an area of strategic significance could be financially beneficial, provided the habitat you create is consistent with that Priority Area. This is because your habitat creation would score higher in the BNG Metric, and therefore you would more easily meet the minimum 10% BNG you must achieve.

Implications for Landowners

If you are a large land holder, such as a farmer, and are interested in setting up a Habitat Bank, then being in an area of strategic significance (i.e. one of the Priority Areas) could be financially beneficial to you because there is the potential to create more BNG units for sale for each parcel of habitat you create. However, the habitat you create would have to be consistent with the habitat desired in the Priority Area.

Important Caveat

The guidance on this webpage is intended to be a helpful starting point for understanding Strategic Significance and BNG, and how it is to be applied locally. However, it is not a substitute for, and should not be relied on as an alternative to, the full national guidance and legislative requirements which must be adhered to. If there is any conflict between any of the advice on this page and national guidance or legislation, then such national guidance or legislation prevails.