Before you spend £3,000+ on an ecological survey, wouldn't it be useful to know what's already on your site? What habitats are there? Are there any SSSIs nearby? Ancient woodland? Protected species records?
BioGain pulls this data from 7 UK government sources automatically. No ecologist visit needed. No account needed. Just draw a boundary on the map.
How It Works
Search by postcode, address, or just navigate the satellite map. Zoom in until you can see your site boundary clearly.
Click the polygon tool and click points around your site boundary. Double-click to finish. The area is calculated automatically.
BioGain queries 7 government databases simultaneously. Results appear in seconds — environmental data overlaid on your satellite map.
View results in the panel, download a PDF, or share a link. Your BNG baseline is calculated using the Statutory Biodiversity Metric methodology.
What Data You Get
7 Data Layers — All Government Sources
- Priority Habitats — Natural England's Priority Habitat Inventory
- Ancient Woodland — Woodland present since at least 1600 AD
- SSSIs — Sites of Special Scientific Interest
- Flood Risk — Environment Agency flood zones
- Species Records — NBN Atlas (protected and notable species)
- Soil & Geology — British Geological Survey superficial deposits
- LIDAR Elevation — EA 1m Digital Terrain Model (terrain profile)
Each data layer is overlaid on the satellite map, so you can see exactly where features are in relation to your boundary. The results panel shows feature counts, habitat types, species lists, and soil descriptions.
What the BNG Score Means
BioGain calculates your baseline biodiversity units using the Statutory Biodiversity Metric. This gives you:
- Area habitat units — based on habitat type, size, condition, and distinctiveness
- Estimated condition — using satellite data and habitat classification
- Enhancement recommendations — what you could do to achieve the 10% net gain
- Statutory metric scoring breakdown — distinctiveness bands, condition tiers, strategic significance
This isn't a replacement for a full ecological survey on complex sites, but it gives you a solid starting point for understanding your site's biodiversity value.
Who Is This For?
- Developers doing early feasibility or due diligence on a site
- Landowners curious about the ecological value of their land
- Planning consultants preparing BNG evidence for small sites
- Ecologists wanting a pre-populated baseline before a site visit
- Anyone buying land who wants to understand potential BNG costs
Try it now — completely free
No signup. No credit card. Just draw a boundary and see what's on your site.
Open BioGain →What's the Catch?
No catch. The free tier lets you:
- Draw unlimited boundaries
- View all 7 data layers
- See feature counts and summaries
- Get 1 full screening report per month (with watermark)
If you need unlimited reports, full PDFs without watermarks, project saving, and the SSM calculator, Pro is £39/month. Pro subscriptions are £49. Either way, that's a fraction of what a manual ecological survey costs.
About the Data
All data comes from official UK government open data APIs — Natural England, Environment Agency, British Geological Survey, and NBN Atlas. Data is queried in real-time (not cached), so you always get the latest available information. BioGain doesn't hold or store environmental data — we query it fresh for each assessment.