Tees Tidelands

Banking biodiversity credits to fund local flood resilience.

Tees Tidelands challenges the traditional funding mechanisms and how we use and manage our low-lying agricultural land. It will provide a circular funding mechanism that delivers improved flood resilience and habitat, in a way that also provides future income for reinvestment in further flood resilience and habitat creation projects.

In the last 200 years the Tees Estuary has transformed into one of the largest industrial complexes in the UK. However, this has negatively affected the natural environment and led to flood risk to industry and homes within the area, which will be made worse by sea level rise. The habitats and species remaining in the estuary are internationally recognised and protected by multiple conservation designations.

Industry and nature often seem to work against each other in the estuary, with conservation designations limiting development, and previous development and man-made structures limiting improvement of habitats to support protected species. This is further complicated by the need for developments to create habitats elsewhere if the development will lead to loss of habitat. If this can't be done on the development site itself, it can be difficult to find somewhere else nearby.

Tees Tidelands Port Clarence aims to address this by establishing a funding system based on the sale of "biodiversity credits" from creating habitat that is used to compensate for habitat losses elsewhere in the estuary. The income received from developers would then be used to fund further habitat creation projects, help local flood resilience measures, and to help engage local communities to better understand and prepare for flooding. Creating a local habitat bank allows local developers to provide habitat compensation closer to the development site rather than elsewhere in the region or country. This helps to build and maintain strong habitat networks in the Tees Estuary and to provide benefits to local communities.

This project is focussed on the community of Port Clarence. Port Clarence has faced, and continues to face, the risk of tidal and fluvial flooding. Port Clarence is a deprived community with a number of social and economic challenges. Take-up of the Environment Agency’s flood warning service is extremely low, 39% compared to the NE regional total of 79%. There is also a local knowledge gap regarding flood risk in the area. Using the village as a demonstrator will help build community interest and engagement with resilience.

The 3 main elements of the project are:

1. Engagement with the community at Port Clarence, including an assessment of how resilient the community is to flooding before the project, and early engagement to involve the community from the outset of the project.
2. Development of the Demonstrator Project at Port Clarence to illustrate the opportunities for Biodiversity Net Gain uplift.
3. Creation of a habitat banking system.

Our project will:

• create a circular funding model for delivering flood resilience actions, supporting recovery of nature and helping facilitate regenerative development proposals,
• offer a future of locally targeted resilience improvements for local communities, funded through the sale of biodiversity units,
• be a demonstrator site, centred on the village of Port Clarence, where habitat has been created and the resilience of the community to tidal flooding is improved.

Who we are working with

How you can get involved

We are keen to work with new partners and local communities. If you would like to get involved, or just find out more about the project please email us at llfa@stockton.gov.uk.

Visit the programme evaluation page to find out more.