Buying BNG Units: How To Simplify Market Access
BNG is still new and a lot of developers are buying off-site units for the first time.
We’ve worked successfully on over 200 BNG transactions across the UK and since March shared our method in six separate Lunch & Learn webinars - for around 500 developers, ecologists, and planning consultants.
The way you approach off-site unit purchase can impact three factors that are critical to your project: the budget, the planning timeline, and whether you can start on schedule. So you want to get this right.
Working with our team boils down to three simple steps:
Step 1: You share your requirements
Send us your biodiversity metric and ecologist report. You probably already know roughly how many units you need - you just don't know where to get them.
We'll also ask two extra questions that might seem odd at first:
have you gone into planning yet
and, when are you starting on site?
We ask because 95% of BNG conditions are pre-commencement - meaning you need your units in place before work starts. If your timeline has some room in it, that is important to know. New habitat banks are opening up all the time, and one that doesn't exist yet might turn out to be more local, or better priced, than anything available today.
Step 2: We search the whole market for you
The BNG market is spread across roughly 285 different habitat bank owners. Even the largest supplier isn't much more than a quarter of the market. It's mostly independents - hundreds of them, all sized differently, all priced differently.
They're listed on the Natural England register, but there are no contact details. So finding them yourself means tracking each one down separately, then ringing round for quotes.
We do that for you. We already work with 220+ of those suppliers - around 85% of the market - so instead of contacting habitat banks one by one, you get up to four options back from a single point of contact on our team.
It doesn't cost you anything extra because for most suppliers we offer Matched Pricing, which means we're paid a referral fee by the habitat bank, not by you.
You get the best deal available and your time back.
Why do options matter?
If you go straight to one habitat bank, you've no way of knowing whether their price is competitive, or whether they're even the closest supplier to your site. Sourcing units close to your development usually gets you the best price - and it's also what your Local Planning Authority tends to want to see.
Step 3 (optional): BNG Certainty Service
If you want it, we can manage the whole transaction from there - making sure the conditions attached to your planning permission are met and the right paperwork is delivered at the right time.
That's peace of mind during an already difficult process, with hundreds of things to think about.
Get hassle-free BNG
The good news is that working with us, none of this has to rely on you.
You can get us to check the whole market on your behalf and because of how matched pricing works, it doesn't cost you anything extra. Then with BNG Certainty you can let us worry about getting the condition discharged correctly.
Get this right, and you get the best price units, and no risk to your start date - dealing with one person instead of seven.
If that sounds good, why not get your BNG options today: Get A Quote
