Terms
How you may use this website, what a quotation from us means, and where the real contract lives.
Who we are
This website is operated by Eco-Logical Landscapes Sussex Ltd, trading as Swift Natural Capital. Where these terms say we, us or our, they mean that company.
- Registered office: 202 Walmer Road, Portsmouth PO1 5AU
- Company number: 15612702
- Email: office@swiftbng.co.uk
What these terms cover
They cover your use of this website, and the stage before a contract — enquiries, quotations and reservations. They are not the contract for the sale of biodiversity units. That is a separate written agreement, specific to the site and the units involved, and where the two differ the written agreement wins.
By using this site you accept these terms. If you do not, please stop using it.
Using this website
You may read, print and share pages of this site for your own purposes and for a development or project you are working on. You may not republish it as your own, sell it, scrape it at a scale that affects other users, or use it to build a competing service.
We try to keep the site available and correct, but we do not promise that it will be uninterrupted or error-free. We may change, suspend or withdraw any part of it without notice.
The information on this site
It is published to help you work out what you need and whether we can supply it. It is general information about biodiversity net gain, not ecological, planning, legal or financial advice, and it is not a substitute for advice on your own site from someone who has looked at it.
Habitat bank profiles are illustrative. The example profiles on this site describe the kind of land we sell units from. They are not offers, and availability, unit types and quantities change as sites are allocated. Ask us and we will tell you what is actually available for your development.
We do not publish prices. Unit prices depend on the habitat type, the location of your development relative to the site, the number of units and the timing, and they move with the market. A figure quoted to someone else, or found elsewhere, is not a figure we are offering you.
Enquiries and quotations
Sending us an enquiry costs nothing and commits you to nothing.
A quotation we give you is valid for three months from its date, unless it says otherwise. It is subject to the units still being available when you accept it, and to a written agreement being entered into. Until then, either of us can walk away.
Payment terms are set out in the quotation and vary with the size and shape of the deal. If the terms offered do not suit your cash flow, say so — they are negotiable, and it is a normal conversation to have.
Reservations and deposits
Where you want units held while planning is determined or contracts are prepared, we will agree a reservation for a defined period and take a deposit.
Deposits are not refundable. The deposit is charged against the reservation itself — it pays for units being taken off the market and held for you rather than sold to someone else. If the sale completes, it is credited in full against the final price. If the reservation period expires without completion, we keep it.
If your planning timetable slips, tell us before the period runs out. Extending a reservation is usually possible, and it is far easier handled early than late.
What we do, and what sits elsewhere
We sell biodiversity units and run the sale from first enquiry through to allocation. That is what we control, and what we are accountable to you for.
The land itself is owned and managed by landowners and habitat bank operators — some banks we manage, others are run by operators we work alongside. Delivery of the habitat is secured for at least thirty years by a section 106 agreement or a conservation covenant, and progress against the habitat management and monitoring plan is evaluated by the local planning authority or by the responsible body under that instrument. That oversight is the point of the statutory framework, and it does not rest on our say-so.
We cannot change a biodiversity metric once it has been submitted, and we do not carry out ecological survey work ourselves. Where a metric is not yet fixed, an early conversation is genuinely useful, and we are glad to have it.
Allocation of units
Units are allocated to a specific development. Allocation is recorded as the statutory framework requires, and we will give you the evidence your local planning authority needs to discharge the condition. Units allocated to your development are not then sold to anyone else.
Intellectual property
The content of this site — text, photographs, illustrations, the Swift BNG name and the swift mark — belongs to us or to our licensors. You may quote short extracts with attribution and a link. Anything more needs our permission first, which is usually a short email away.
Our liability to you
Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be limited.
Subject to that, we are not liable for loss arising from your reliance on general information published on this site, or for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of contract, or planning delay. Our liability in connection with an actual sale of units is dealt with in the written agreement for that sale, not here.
If you are a consumer rather than a business, these terms do not affect your statutory rights.
Links to other sites
Where we link to government guidance, the statutory metric or another organisation, we do it because it is useful. We do not control those sites and are not responsible for their content.
Personal data
What we do with the information you give us is set out in our privacy notice. In short: enquiries go to our inbox rather than into a database attached to this website, and we do not track you across the internet.
Changes to these terms
We may update this page, and the date at the top will tell you when it last happened. The terms that apply to a quotation are the ones in force when the quotation was given.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales, and the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction. Biodiversity net gain is an English statutory regime, so this is the only sensible answer.
Contact
Questions about these terms, or about anything on this site, go to office@swiftbng.co.uk.
Drafted to reflect how this business actually sells units and how this website actually behaves. It is a solid starting point, not legal advice — have it reviewed alongside the privacy notice before launch, and fill in the registered address and company number above. The reservation and deposit wording in particular should be read against the reservation agreement you actually issue.