Mitigation & Biodiversity Design

The ecological interest of a site can potentially present a significant constraint to development. However it may also provide opportunities for enhancing a scheme. Increasingly planning policy and broader government policy on biodiversity seeks to preserve and enhance biodiversity.

Over the last 10 years Baker Shepherd Gillespie has developed a structured approach towards ecology design. The key elements of this approach are:

• The early inclusion of ecologists in projects.
• Close liaison between professional disciplines.
• Developing ecological designs that work.
• Maximising the multi-functional use of green and urban forms.

The inclusion of experienced ecologists at an early stage of planning and design is vital to avoid potential pitfalls and to maximise opportunities for protecting and enhancing biodiversity. BSG regularly works within multidisciplinary project teams and all of our work is based on an ethos of interdisciplinary collaboration to create good pragmatic and achievable designs.

Green spaces and urban forms can serve a variety of purposes such as open space provision, sustainable drainage functions, transport routes and biodiversity gain. BSG seeks to maximise the variety of uses that land within developments can be put to, without compromising the development objectives of the different land uses.