This decision was delegated to officers under Part 4.4 of the Council’s Constitution: all executive functions except those in Part 4.5, 4.6 and 4.7 are delegated to the officers in the senior management structure.

To grant project approval, with an overall budget of £100,000, to carry out a feasibility review of identified parcels of land owned by Oxford City Council (OCC) with a view to assessing the potential to use each for generating Biodiversity Units.  These units could potentially be used to provide biodiversity offsetting for OCC developments which will help to ensure that developments which OCC carries out are offset on OCC-owned land where possible.  It will also support ecological improvements to OCC-owned land.

The decision will enable the Council to gain an understanding of what Biodiversity Net Gain can be delivered on selected OCC-owned sites and work through the legal, planning, property and financial aspects of delivering biodiversity offsetting as a land owner, to establish if it is a viable option for the Council to pursue.  For more information, please see the attached Officer Decision Notice.

The only other option is not to do this work.  Council developments would then be obliged to purchase any offsite biodiversity units from external providers, or government biodiversity credits at significant cost.

Decision taken by Nigel Kennedy, Head of Financial Services in consultation with Emma Jackman, Head of Law and Governance and Mish Tullar, Head of Corporate Strategy.