BDS – Biodiversity and Planning in Dorset

You can find out more about biodiversity and planning in Dorset on the Dorset Council website. In order to comply with all relevant government legislation on biodiversity a Biodiversity Appraisal scheme has been set up for the county to cover the Dorset Council area. This link provides further links to the Biodiversity Appraisal Scheme, Biodiversity Plan (BP), advice notes and guidance sheets. Section 1, General guidance for Householder, Listed Building Consent and standalone barn conversions, p11 covers the desk study and data searches for householder applications and Section 2, General guidance for minor and major development, p7 covers the desk study and data searches for minor and major applications.

BCP Council provide an advice note for submitting planning applications including data on protected species and local sites. Please follow this link.

There are several reasons to include data from DERC as part of a BP or EcIA:

  • To avoid disturbance to known roosts and other wildlife features
  • To highlight species likely to occur on site and to help plan survey work
  • To give context to the development and aid the interpretation of survey data
  • To encourage appropriate mitigation and enhancement
  • To mitigate against the cumulative impact of development

The British Standard (BS42020) released in 2013 provides guidance on what information consultants should request from a Local Environmental Records Centre (LERC), i.e. species and habitat information to inform desk studies and future fieldwork and assessment (6.4.2). Consultants are not expected to include long, un-interpreted species lists from LERCs in their reports, only the main findings and conclusions. More recently Guidelines for Accessing and Using Biodiversity Data were published by CIEEM (2023) and the Biodiversity in Planning Partnership guide (2019) is a useful reference.

BS42020 goes further in encouraging survey data to be made available to LERCs at the time that the ecological report enters the public realm unless there is an explicit contractual restriction on such data release (6.4.7). Currently DERC extract data from ecological reports submitted to Dorset Council and BCP Council with a planning application. If you would rather compile and submit your own records please let DERC know. You can submit your records via Living Record or as an Excel spreadsheet (see example format on our website). If you require any further advice on how to submit your data, please contact the Records Centre Manager.