Wirral's Biodiversity Strategy

The consultation has now closed, thank you for your contributions. The consultation report is available in the documents section.

Biodiversity and Biodiversity Net Gain

Biodiversity is the variety of natural things around us such as the different types of animals and insects, their habitats, and their ecosystems.

Having varied and good biodiversity is important because it can provide us with many functions such as cleaning our air and our water and pollinating our food. It can also help store carbon from emissions and provide natural flood defences.

Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) is an approach to planning (such as new developments) and land management that leaves the natural environment in a better state than it was before.

From November 2023, all planning permission granted in England, with a few exceptions, will have to deliver a minimum of 10% BNG under the Environment Act 2021.

To find out more about Biodiversity Net Gain, watch the below video from Natural England.

In Wirral, we have a rich biodiversity, from our coasts, lowland heaths and woodland to our environmental sites of national, European, and international significance – with eleven Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) across the borough.

The council’s declaration of an environment and climate emergency in July 2019 recognised the importance of biodiversity through our aim to double our tree canopy cover, transform our open spaces and build a resilient borough. You can find out more about the work that we are doing for pollinators (external link) and trees (external link) on the council’s website.

As a council, we need, and want, to continue to do everything we can to protect what we have and continue to improve our biodiversity. This will start with BNG being built into the Wirral Local Plan 2021-2037 under development policy and being applied to all developments from November 2023.

To continue to deliver on this, we plan to produce a Biodiversity and Net Gain Strategy for Wirral. This strategy will address how we can respond and act on our new duties to protect biodiversity, but we also want it to reflect what our residents think.

By taking the survey below, you can tell us what you understand about biodiversity, how you think it affects Wirral and your community, what is most important to the borough in terms of biodiversity, any current projects you are involved in and if you would like to support us to continue to protect Wirral’s biodiversity.

You can also submit any comments or thoughts you have about biodiversity to the ideas board below, or use the interactive map to place pins on any areas that you think should be a priority for action and protection.