Green infrastructure statements in Wales: what to include

This article deals with Wales. A green infrastructure statement is a Welsh planning document, expected by Planning Policy Wales for most development proposals, and it has no direct equivalent in England. It is not a biodiversity net gain calculation, there is no 10 per cent metric behind it, and an English ecology chapter reworded for a Welsh site will not satisfy the authority.

What it does is show how the natural resources on and around a site have been considered from the start of the design, how the proposal avoids harm, and what net benefit for biodiversity the scheme delivers.

What a green infrastructure statement has to cover

Planning Policy Wales asks for the statement to demonstrate that green infrastructure has shaped the proposal rather than been applied to it. In practice, authorities in Wales look for four things.

A baseline of the green infrastructure assets on the site and in the surrounding area, including trees, hedgerows, watercourses, ponds, grassland, soils and the connections between them. An account of how the design responds to that baseline. The multifunctional benefits the proposed green infrastructure will deliver. And the arrangements for delivering and managing it over time.

The document is a design narrative supported by ecological evidence, not a survey report. Where survey work is needed, it sits alongside as a separate appraisal. Planning Policy Wales is revised periodically, so check the current edition on gov.wales before you settle the structure.

The step-wise approach and the order it runs in

The step-wise approach is the spine of the assessment and the part most often mishandled. It runs in order, and each step has to be shown to have been exhausted before the next is relied on.

1. Avoid damage to biodiversity, by siting, layout and design.
2. Mitigate any damage that cannot be avoided.
3. Compensate for residual damage as a last resort.
4. Deliver net benefit for biodiversity, over and above the first three steps.

The order matters because an authority can refuse a scheme that jumps to compensation while an avoidable loss remains on the drawings. Removing a hedgerow and offering a replacement elsewhere is step three dressed as step one.

Net benefit for biodiversity is a qualitative test in Wales. You describe what is gained, in what habitat, at what scale and over what period, and you justify why it amounts to a benefit. There is no statutory metric to run and no register of off-site units to buy into. That freedom cuts both ways: without a number to point at, the reasoning has to carry the argument.

Baseline information and how to gather it

Start with what is already published. The local development plan's green infrastructure or ecological network mapping, the relevant Natural Resources Wales area statement, the local environmental records centre, and historic mapping for field boundaries and ponds that have been lost.

Then walk the site. A preliminary ecological appraisal carried out by an ecologist gives the habitat baseline, protected species risk and the survey programme. A tree survey gives condition and root protection areas. Soils are routinely forgotten and are a natural resource under Welsh policy, so record them.

The baseline should extend beyond the red line. Connectivity is one of the resilience attributes named in the legislation, and a hedgerow that links two woodlands matters more than an isolated one of the same length. Draw the connections on a plan.

Record what is absent as well as what is present. A statement that says the site is improved grassland with nothing of interest, evidenced by survey, is more credible than one that finds something notable on every parcel.

Multifunctional benefits and how to describe them

Multifunctionality is the point of green infrastructure and the place where statements become vague. The discipline is to name the function, the receptor and the mechanism.

A rain garden is not simply a sustainable drainage feature. It attenuates surface water before it reaches the sewer, it provides wet grassland habitat, it cools the immediate area in summer, and it gives the frontage a planted edge. Four functions, each attributable to one feature, each capable of being secured by a condition.

Useful functions to work through for a typical scheme are surface water management, shading and cooling, air quality, habitat and connectivity, food growing, recreation and play, active travel routes, carbon storage in soils and trees, and landscape character. A landscape strategy drawing that labels each area with its functions communicates this faster than three pages of prose.

Avoid claiming benefits you cannot deliver. A statement that credits a 2 metre strip of amenity grass with recreation, biodiversity and climate adaptation benefits invites the officer to discount the whole document.

Securing delivery through conditions

A statement that ends at planning permission is worth little. Welsh authorities increasingly condition the green infrastructure as a package.

The usual mechanisms are a landscape and ecological management plan submitted before works start, a schedule of planting with species, sizes and densities, a replacement provision for failed planting within five years, a management and maintenance plan with a named responsible body and a term of at least ten to thirty years depending on the habitat, and a monitoring requirement with reporting to the authority.

Where the green infrastructure is the mitigation for a protected species or a designated site, the management obligation will usually sit in a section 106 agreement rather than a condition, because it needs to bind successors in title.

Write the delivery section as if you will be held to it, because you will. Naming a management company that does not yet exist, or a maintenance period shorter than the time the habitat needs to establish, is the most common reason a good statement fails at discharge of conditions.

Relationship with the section 6 duty

Section 6 of the Environment (Wales) Act 2016 requires public authorities to seek to maintain and enhance biodiversity in the exercise of their functions, so far as consistent with the proper exercise of those functions, and in doing so to promote the resilience of ecosystems.

Resilience is defined through named attributes: diversity between and within habitats, the extent of those systems, their condition, the connections between them, and their adaptability. A green infrastructure statement that addresses each attribute directly gives the case officer the material they need for the section 6 section of their report.

That is the practical value of the document. The duty falls on the authority, not on the applicant, and the officer has to record how it has been discharged. A statement written to mirror the attributes makes that easy, and an officer who can lift your reasoning into their report is an officer who is not asking for further information.

The well-being goals under the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, particularly a resilient Wales, sit above all of this and are worth a short paragraph rather than a chapter.

Scale of statement expected by project size

Proportionality is written into the policy, and a householder extension does not need what a 200-home allocation needs.

PlanScope's Green Infrastructure Plan report type can draft the structure and the policy narrative, and because the drafting is grounded in English policy, a Welsh submission needs the reviewer to check it against Planning Policy Wales, the relevant Technical Advice Notes and the adopted local development plan. The same caution applies across the devolved nations, and our note on the SPPS and local development plans in Northern Ireland covers the equivalent framework there.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, so check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports your site is likely to need.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.