BNG Needs to be Treated as a Design Requirement
BNG is often spoken about as if it sits entirely within ecology, but at its core it is a spatial policy.
Every part of the metric depends on geography:
Area,
boundaries,
patch size,
mapped condition
spatial relationships
If the geometry changes, the score changes, even when the ecology hasn’t. The reliability of a baseline value or the financial worth of off site units comes down to whether the mapped data is accurate, consistent and auditable. It is a fair question the validity of baseline surveys, and to ask how anyone can be confident that their 50 baseline units are correct or whether the £100k of off site units on a register is truly reliable.
Regardless of the debates as to whether habitat proxies are the correct method for quantifying biodiversity, a lot of work has gone into the development of the metric. But those ecological components only work if the spatial foundation beneath them is right. Without consistent GIS data, the policy cannot deliver what it was designed to achieve. The issue is that the design process has not yet made space for BNG to be treated with the same level of discipline and structure as other technical work.
I spent nearly a decade in an infrastructure design team, surrounded by BIM processes that are normal for engineers and architects. The industry accepts that structured data, version control and coordination are how you avoid expensive mistakes later. When we move through the RIBA stages from concept design to spatial coordination to technical design, we do so because early decisions matter and because spatial coherence and technical clarity reduce downstream failure. Even with this structure, clashes still happen and things still go wrong, but the framework exists because it prevents far more problems than it creates
BNG is now being considered at detailed design, which is incredibly positive. But for BNG to be truly successful, we need:
data structures
information requirements
governance
ownership
clear roles and responsibilities
At the moment, we are asking ecologists, designers, GIS teams and planners to coordinate with no shared data model. This is especially visible in NSIPs and complex, multi phase projects, where BNG interacts with:
legally binding requirements,
compulsory acquisition
boundaries,
three decades of monitoring
examination‑level scrutiny
If the spatial data behind those obligations is inconsistent or unclear, the risk escalates quickly.
This comes up again and again in the questions I receive after presenting. People wanted to know how to communicate GIS needs to designers, or how to help landscape architects understand what ecologists require, or how to avoid the circular conversations that happen when a dataset cannot be validated. What these questions all shared was a frustration with the lack of a shared structure. No one is resistant to collaboration. The issue is that without clear expectations from the start, every discipline ends up interpreting BNG in their own way. By the time the project reaches detailed design, the spatial evidence is already diverging.
This is why I believe BNG should be treated as a design requirement. Not just to encourage people to think about ecology earlier, but to introduce the structures and information discipline that a spatial policy of this scale needs. If BNG is considered at the start of design, the GIS requirements stop feeling like a surprise. Teams know how boundaries must be handled. They know what needs to be surveyed, what format the data should be in, how it should be classified and how it will be monitored. Requirements become predictable and consistent. It stops being an isolated task and becomes part of the design process.
This is also where FRIDAS fits. The checklist gives teams that shared structure they keep asking for. It sets out the expectations clearly so no one is guessing what “good” looks like. Ecologists are not left trying to reverse engineer GIS requirements on their own, designers know what spatial constraints and outputs they need to consider, and GIS teams receive data they can trust rather than rebuild. FRIDAS brings the discipline and consistency that BNG has been missing and gives everyone a common foundation to work from.
The value of this becomes even clearer in NSIPs. These projects evolve over years, sometimes decades, with changing land interests, phased design packages and multiple contractors. Without a robust spatial structure, the baseline does not match the updated design, habitats drift across versions, and no one can be confident that the BNG outcomes presented at examination are the outcomes being delivered on the ground. FRIDAS prevents that drift by making
versioning
clean geometry
metadata
consistent attributes
a normal part of the process.
BNG has matured significantly, and it is time to give it the weight and robustness it needs to succeed. When the spatial side is governed with the same rigour as the ecological and design sides, the whole system becomes more coherent. FRIDAS is one step toward that. It supports better communication across disciplines, gives LPAs something verifiable, reduces rework and builds confidence in long‑term delivery. If we want BNG to work at the scale it is intended, from small sites through to NSIPs, we need that shared structure. And FRIDAS provides exactly that.
