How to source off-site BNG units in the North West
Tell BNG Sourced by Green Acres BNG your requirement once. Our specialists source potential supply from landowners, habitat bank operators and BNG providers across the North West and the rest of England, match it to your metric and the trading rules and make the introduction. Free for developers.
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Live supply outlook by unit type
43 registered gain sites in the North West covering 796 hectares, with 379 allocations recorded. Most sites by planning authority: Cheshire East (12), Cheshire West and Chester (5), Westmorland and Furness (4), Bolton (4), Wigan (2). Counts from Natural England's biodiversity gain site register, updated 4 October 2026. Good means 35 or more registered sites creating area habitat (20 for hedgerow, 8 for watercourse); limited means 15, 8 and 3 or more; scarce is fewer. Outlooks describe the region, not your site; see data and methodology.
Local planning authorities and growth areas
Main authorities in the North West include Manchester, Salford, Trafford, Stockport, Bolton, Wigan, Liverpool, Wirral, Sefton, Knowsley, St Helens, Warrington, Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Lancaster, Preston, Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness. Development pressure is driven by Greater Manchester housing allocations under Places for Everyone, Liverpool City Region freeport and logistics sites, the Cheshire science corridor, Lancashire enterprise zones and energy projects around Morecambe Bay and Cumbria.
Local Nature Recovery Strategy areas
LNRS areas covering the North West: Cumbria; Lancashire; Greater Manchester; Liverpool City Region; Cheshire and Warrington. Spatial risk is currently assessed by local planning authority and National Character Area. The government plans to move it to England’s 48 LNRS areas, with no commencement date set when we last checked. For the North West that would mean supply anywhere within the same LNRS area counting as local, which changes which sites are worth looking at first. Read the LNRS guide.
Typical development pressures
Urban housing in Greater Manchester and Merseyside is usually delivered on land with low baseline value but little room for on-site gain, so off-site area habitat units dominate. Logistics along the M6 and M62 and upland infrastructure in Cumbria add demand. Registered supply is strongest in Cheshire, Lancashire and Cumbria, with city-region boroughs relying on adjacent-area sourcing.
Sourcing BNG units in the North West, step by step
- Separate the deficit by unit type. Mersey and Manchester urban sites usually need area units only; rural Cheshire and Lancashire schemes often add hedgerow units.
- We search the same borough and National Character Area first. The Cheshire and Lancashire plains and the Mersey valley NCAs cross borough lines, which sometimes makes a neighbouring authority local.
- Options come back with multiplier arithmetic and provider status.
- Allocation is recorded on the register and evidenced in the gain plan.
Local context developers ask about
Places for Everyone allocations in Greater Manchester and freeport sites around the Mersey are the biggest demand sources. Cumbria’s upland sites create relatively few units per hectare but can be inexpensive at the elsewhere multiplier for large requirements. Hedgerow units are limited; watercourse units are scarce. Five LNRS areas cover the region, so the planned change would make county-wide supply local for most city-region boroughs.
Typical habitats and unit types in the North West
Greater Manchester and Merseyside housing allocations are often on improved grassland or previously developed land with low baselines. The Cheshire and Lancashire plains are predominantly improved grassland and arable with dense hedgerow networks, so hedgerow units are a frequent requirement for rural housing. Mossland and lowland raised bog in Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Cheshire are priority habitats that score very highly and are hard to offset; survey early. Upland Cumbria and the Pennine fringe bring blanket bog and acid grassland, high distinctiveness types with specialised replacement rules.
Other constraints to run alongside BNG
Great crested newt district licensing operates across much of Cheshire and parts of Lancashire and Greater Manchester. Mersey estuary and Morecambe Bay designations trigger habitats regulations assessment for coastal schemes.
Who to involve and when
- Pre-application: ecologist for baseline and metric, us for a supply outlook and the multiplier picture
- Application: planning consultant for the hierarchy statement and draft gain plan
- Post-permission: provider allocation, final gain plan
The multiplier in the North West
| Where supply sits | Multiplier | Units bought for a deficit of 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Same LPA or National Character Area | 1.0 | 1.00 |
| Adjacent LPA or NCA | 0.75 | 1.34 |
| Elsewhere in England | 0.5 | 2.00 |
North West questions
Is there supply inside Greater Manchester?
Some registered sites exist in the Greater Manchester boroughs, but demand from the city region’s housing and logistics pipeline outstrips them. Many schemes source from Cheshire, Lancashire or the High Peak fringe, which count as adjacent at 0.75 unless the National Character Area matches. We check both LPA and NCA before telling you what counts as local.
Does the Mersey or Ribble estuary change anything?
Sites near the estuaries often need Habitats Regulations Assessment alongside BNG and some authorities ask for recreational pressure mitigation too. These are separate processes from BNG, but we check that any gain site we introduce does not create a conflict with them.
Which LNRS area would my site fall in?
Greater Manchester, Liverpool City Region, Lancashire, Cheshire and Cumbria each have their own LNRS. Under the current rules the Local Nature Recovery Strategy is a consideration in the metric through the strategic significance multiplier, not a boundary for spatial risk, which still uses the local planning authority and National Character Area. Government has consulted on moving spatial risk to LNRS areas; no commencement date was set when last checked. We track this and will update the region pages when it changes.
What counts as local for a site in the North West?
A gain site is local, at 1.0, if it is in the same local planning authority as your development or in the same National Character Area, which often crosses council boundaries. Main authorities here are Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Cheshire East and Cheshire West, Lancashire districts and Cumberland and Westmorland and Furness. Adjacent means a neighbouring LPA or NCA, at 0.75 and North Yorkshire, the West Midlands shires and the North East count as adjacent at the margins. Anything else in England is elsewhere at 0.5, so a deficit of 2 units needs 4.
How much do BNG units cost in the North West?
Indicative area unit prices in the North West sit at the lower to middle of the national range, with strong demand from Greater Manchester and Cheshire logistics pushing some local prices up. The price per unit matters less than the effective price per unit of your deficit after the multiplier: a local unit at a higher price is often cheaper overall than a distant unit at a lower price. The estimator on the home page and the prices page give dated indicative ranges; only a provider can confirm a price.
How long does sourcing take here?
Typically we come back with options within one working day of receiving your requirement and allocation can follow within a week or two where the provider has registered, unallocated units and your ecologist can supply the metric and gain plan extracts promptly. The slowest steps are usually on the development side: a draft metric that changes or a gain plan submitted late. For phased schemes we can arrange forward allocation so later phases are not left searching.
Are hedgerow and watercourse units available in the North West?
Hedgerow units are scarcer than area units everywhere and watercourse units scarcer still, because few registered sites create them; the live outlook above shows how many sites in this region do. They cannot be substituted with area units, so a scheme with linear deficits should start sourcing before the planning application rather than after. Typical losses here are modified grassland and arable on the Cheshire and Lancashire plains, with hedgerow deficits common and watercourse deficits on culverted urban becks.
What local constraints sit alongside BNG in the North West?
Mossland and peat in Greater Manchester and Lancashire, the Mersey and Ribble estuaries and the Lake District national park all add designations and sensitive habitats to the baseline. These are separate processes from BNG with their own evidence, but they affect which gain sites are suitable and sometimes which providers can help with more than one obligation, so tell us about them when you submit your requirement.
Related: BNG unit prices, spatial risk multiplier, England supply index, all regions.
Need units in the North West?
Tell us your requirement and we'll start sourcing today.
- One requirement, one point of contact, supply from across England
- Options checked against your metric, the trading rules and the spatial risk multiplier
- Free for developers: where our involvement results in an introduction, the provider pays us an introduction fee
- A specialist in touch, typically within one working day
Free for developers. Your details are only used to source your units.