Fees to apply to register a habitat bank with Exmoor National Park Authority will be as follows:
Small site (0-10ha) £499.50
Medium site (11-20ha) £582.75
Large site (21+ha) £666
These are in addition to the fees for monitoring and enforcement set out below in brackets.
The LPA will require a fee to cover costs of assessment, monitoring and enforcement of off-site Biodiversity Gain Plans, and significant on-site BNG proposals. The below is a breakdown of how the costs have been derived by Devon Authorities and will be used as a base from which Devon LPAs can derive their monitoring fees. We will be using these values as the basis for monitoring fees across Exmoor National Park.
Non-significant onsite BNG proposals must provide, as a minimum, photographic evidence of habitat creation, establishment and retention at Years 1, 2, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25 of the management period. ENPA reserves the right to impose additional monitoring requirements where site-specific circumstances warrant a higher level of oversight.
The day rate for a principal ecologist to review monitoring reports and undertake site visits has been calculated at £333 (£44.44 /hr). A yearly inflation of 3% per annum has been included (this inflation rate will be regularly reviewed by Devon authorities).
Monitoring reports will be expected to be submitted to ENPA on Years 2, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 of the agreement. Site visits will be undertaken by an ENPA officer (or someone employed by ENPA) on years 1, 5, 15, 25 and 30. Costings for a sixth site visit at an unspecified time (with required access notice period included in the S106) have also been included.
Based on Devon Authorities fees, in Exmoor National Park monitoring costs for significant on-site and registered off-site provision will be associated with the size of the on-site/off-site/habitat bank land parcel. The following fees have been calculated. The lower figure in brackets applies to habitat banks.2
Small site (0-10ha) - £4,131.08 (for habitat banks excluding application fee £3,631.58)
Medium site (11-20ha) - £5,076.97 (for habitat banks excluding application fee £4,494.22)
Large site (21ha+) - £6,022.86 (for habitat banks excluding application fee £5,356.86)
The review of monitoring reports on the years stated above are assumed to take 0.5 days, regardless of site size. The length of site visits will be dependent on the sizes of sites and have been assumed to take 0.5 days for a small site, 0.75 days for a medium site and 1 day for a large site.
Legal fees will need to be charged on top of the costs above to be agreed at the start of the S106 process. It is envisaged that the above fees will be paid by the developer or habitat bank provider at the point of signing of the relevant legal agreement.