Thirty-seven Backworth homes have won planning permission on land that had already been identified for ecological mitigation for a separate development.
The Inspector accepted that the housing scheme would cause genuine localised biodiversity harm, even with a numerical biodiversity net gain. But a severe housing land-supply shortfall and the delivery of market and affordable homes ultimately carried greater weight.
Backworth homes overlap earlier mitigation land
The appeal concerned the demolition of existing buildings at Backworth Business Park and construction of 37 homes, including nine affordable homes.
Part of the same land had previously been identified as on-site ecological mitigation for another development allowed on appeal. North Tyneside Council argued that the new housing proposal would undermine those earlier mitigation arrangements.
Inspector F Harrison did not find a legal rule preventing two planning permissions from covering the same land. Granting the second permission did not guarantee that both schemes could be implemented in full, and any practical incompatibility remained a risk for the landowner.
That did not dispose of the ecological issue, however.
Inspector finds real biodiversity harm despite BNG figures
The site included land associated with the Eccles Colliery Extension Local Wildlife Site, a wildlife corridor and the area’s green infrastructure network.
Although the quality of some grassland had declined, the Inspector still identified ecological value in grassland, woodland, scrub, species-rich hedgerow and habitat used by the Dingy Skipper, a priority butterfly species.
The housing would remove habitat, fragment ecological links and result in the loss of a small local Dingy Skipper population.
The scheme’s biodiversity calculations showed an 11.51% habitat gain and a 35.01% hedgerow gain, with much of the replacement habitat proposed off site nearby.
Those figures did not make the policy conflict disappear. The Inspector found the statutory BNG requirements likely to be deliverable but still gave moderate negative weight to the localised biodiversity harm.
2.82-year housing supply tips the balance
North Tyneside could demonstrate only a 2.82-year housing land supply. Against that background, the Inspector gave substantial weight to the delivery of 37 homes, including nine affordable homes, on an accessible brownfield site allocated for development.
The appeal was determined against the August 2026 National Planning Policy Framework. Despite the ecological conflict, the overall planning balance favoured permission.
Appeal 6006322 was allowed on 23rd September 2026, subject to conditions and the relevant obligations.
The point is not that BNG “overrode” ecology. The decision says almost the opposite: a scheme can achieve the statutory net-gain calculation and still cause ecological harm that weighs against it. What changed the outcome here was the wider planning balance, particularly the acute housing shortage and affordable-housing delivery.
The overlapping-permissions point is also useful. Planning Geek’s case-law library covers both Pilkington and Hillside, while our BNG guide explains the separate statutory biodiversity regime.
You can read the locally hosted Backworth appeal decision or the Planning Inspectorate appeal record.
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