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Mycelia

A solution to help Local Planning Authorities drive better environmental outcomes in less time. Includes end-to-end support for BNG, covering validation, assessment, monitoring, and reporting.

Mycelia is brilliant, we love the software. We really appreciate the simplicity and user friendliness of the tool.

Simone Turner, Ecology Officer, Hammersmith & Fulham Council

Ecology in local government is vital but overstretched

Enhancing nature is becoming ever more important for Local Authorities, and requires expert ecological input.

Yet most Authorities are struggling to recruit and support enough ecologists.

Biodiversity Net Gain brings new opportunities…

Mandatory BNG can help Local Authorities to generate better local environments, improved outcomes for citizens, and revenue to support their activities.

…But also new responsibilities and risks

The workload of validating and assessing BNG plans, and monitoring and reporting for 30 years, could drastically slow down planning.

New duties to manage and enforce BNG means new legal requirements and challenges.

Mycelia helps Local Planning Authorities manage Biodiversity Net Gain

Mycelia helps local government teams with every aspect of the BNG process – from validation and assessment, to monitoring and reporting.

Developed through collaborative research involving ecologists at more than 40 Local Authorities, it helps ecologists, planners, and validation officers drive better outcomes with less stress and more control.

Book a Mycelia demo

Everyone in the planning community needs to realise how difficult it would be to do all the validation and assessment work without Mycelia, and the hours and days saved by the software.

Lisa Malter, Ecologist, Eastleigh Borough Council

Key benefits and features

  • Save time across teams and throughout the BNG process, both pre- and post-determination, with tailor-made software.
  • Drive better environmental outcomes, using tools designed by ecologists and environmental scientists, with links to wider issues including Local Nature  Recovery Strategies.
  • Catch and manage risks, with smart checks, alerts, and prioritisation underpinned by ecological science.
  • Generate value-for-money, gaining huge time savings and better outcomes at an affordable price (£10k/year all-inclusive for most LPAs).
  • Drag-and-drop import of the Biodiversity Metric, and radically easier interfaces for interacting with it at validation, assessment, and monitoring. No need to sift through spreadsheet-style data ever again.
  • Full and faithful recreation of the BNG algorithm. Powers smart error-checking, including automated validation checks, and auto-reporting of Biodiversity Unit progress.
  • Handles all BNG requirements, including tracking monitoring data, responsibilities, and deadlines for every case, and automated reporting for statutory duties and wider stakeholders.
  • Ecology-driven risk-flagging and prioritisation, based on insights from leading ecologists.
  • Built from the ground up to handle and display spatial data. Enables geospatial functions including map views and location-based search, and is futureproofed for receiving applicants’ GIS data.
  • Based on extensive research with local government ecologists, and co-developed with a working group of seven Local Planning Authorities.

Local Authorities using Mycelia include:

Mycelia works so well that I was able to look through a BNG Metric live in a pre-app meeting – this is something I wouldn’t be able to do otherwise, and helped us move forward quickly there and then, avoiding potentially time-consuming follow-ons.

Des Hobson, Principal Ecological Consultant, Swindon Council

BNG resources

We’ve published free resources to help Local Planning Authorities with Biodiversity Net Gain – including articles and a monitoring fee calculator.

See Verna’s latest publications

Mycelia makes it much quicker to review the BNG Metric. It’s also great that I can use the automatic error checks in my responses.

Elizabeth Burrows, Senior Ecologist, Wiltshire Council

Book a demo

We’ll try to understand your priorities, and explore whether or not Mycelia would meet your needs.

Book a demo

Further information about Mycelia

The Mycelia information page provides details to assist procurement processes, including pricing, technical information, and terms and conditions.

See pricing, terms, and technical details

Mycelia can be a massive help in understanding the BNG Metric and reduce the amount of time spent assessing applications.

Helen Markland, Principal Ecologist, Doncaster Council

Mycelia allows me to review Metrics more quickly – for example 30 minutes instead of 2.5 hours for a relatively straightforward Metric.

Danielle Berry, Biodiversity and Countryside Officer, Cotswold District Council

Mycelia has made it so easy to track habitats and pick out those bits in the Metric that are not quite right.

Carolyn Herbert, Ecology Officer, Isle of Wight Council

Mycelia brilliantly summarises the ecological problems I would have raised without the software, but it does it A LOT quicker. I love it!

Sarah Boyd, Ecologist, Eastleigh Borough Council