Issue - meetings

That Cabinet:

(a)       approve the proposed amended First Consideration Proposed Future Actions and Monitoring as the Council’s Biodiversity Strategy;

(b)      approve publication of the proposed Biodiversity Report 2024-2025; and

(c)   approve that future Biodiversity Reports will be published annually.

The Biodiversity & Ecology Lead Officer presented a report which set out a proposed Biodiversity Strategy and presented the statutorily required Biodiversity Report for 2024 - 2025. The Cabinet had approved publication of the Biodiversity Report - First Consideration on 4 June 2025. It was proposed that this First Consideration report be amended to account for the current situation as was set out in the report.

AGREED     (unanimously) that Cabinet:

a)           approve the proposed amended First Consideration Proposed Future Actions and Monitoring as the Council’s Biodiversity Strategy;

b)          approve publication of the proposed Biodiversity Report 2024-2025; and

c)           approve that future Biodiversity Reports will be published annually.

Reasons for Decision:

As set out in the summary for Alternative Options Considered, some of the proposed actions align with Ambition 6 of the Community Plan, particularly ‘Play an active role in biodiversity net gain for the district, including the potential to own our own biodiversity offset sites, as well as looking at how our own developments can contribute.’

Options Considered:

None, as there is a statutory requirement to have agreed actions within a First Consideration report and the proposed Biodiversity Strategy provides a mechanism for that.

The statutory requirement can be no more than 5-year reporting intervals but given imminent changes to mandatory BNG and impending Local Government Reform, and a Council fully engaged with biodiversity matters, annual reporting was considered appropriate.