When the Statutory Biodiversity Metric is used to calculate how many credits are awarded for an issue, the output with the lowest percentage score of the three outputs (habitats, watercourses and hedgerows) is used. In cases where the SQE has confirmed that there is no opportunity to enhance or create new habitat to increase the score, this requirement can be relaxed for the hedgerow and watercourse metrics (as these are usually those that are more difficult to compensate for).
This exception is only applicable if on-site enhancement is used exclusively. If off-site enhancement is used, then the output with the worst score should be used.
