The 50-acre arable field at Hall Farm in Knettishall, close to the Norfolk-Suffolk border near Thetford, will be transformed into a complex mosaic of wildlife habitats, nestled alongside the neighbouring Suffolk Wildlife Trust reserve at Knettishall Heath.

This restoration will be funded by selling biodiversity credits to private investors keen to offset their own ecological footprint - via new Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) regulations.

The rules, which came into effect last year, require developers to replace habitats and biodiversity lost during building projects - plus a net gain of at least 10pc - either by ringfencing wildlife areas on site, or by paying other landowners to create equivalent BNG units for them.

And the Knettishall site has joined a rapidly-growing national network of more than 40 Habitat Banks established by leading off-site BNG provider Environment Bank, in partnership with rural landowners.

Farmer James Bucher, right, with Environment Bank ecologist Matt Dodds on land where a Habitat Bank will be created at Knettishall (Image: Denise Bradley) Farm owner James Bucher said he was drawn to the project for........

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