In 2020-2021, Buckinghamshire (not including Milton Keynes) was one of five pilot areas to test the LNRS process and support Defra in putting together guidance for the final LNRS process. The outputs from the pilot LNRS process are published below. Please note that the pilot outputs are not a final product and the LNRS currently being prepared may differ substantially from what was produced at that time. Now that the regulations and statutory guidance have been published, we need to carry out a full LNRS in accordance with the process and requirements set out in these documents. In addition, since the pilot only covered Buckinghamshire, without Milton Keynes, and had a more restricted timescale. In the iteration of the LNRS that is currently being worked on, we will be expanding the reach and depth of our stakeholder engagement to develop a more comprehensive LNRS. This said, we will draw on the work from the pilot and ensure we incorporate all the consultation responses from the pilot.
Buckinghamshire Pilot Draft Local Nature Recovery Strategy
Appendices:
Appendix 1: Strategies and Policies of Relevance
Appendix 2: The State of Nature in Buckinghamshire
Appendix 3: Stakeholder Engagement Summary Report
Appendix 4a: Stakeholder Data Processing Methodology
Appendix 4b: Stakeholder Data Processing
Appendix 5: Baseline Maps - Source Data and Citations
Appendix 6: Biodiversify Local Habitat Maps Method
Appendix 7: Environmental Data
Earlier in the year we ran a number of workshops and online surveys to gather your views on how to make Buckinghamshire a better place for wildlife and people. You can click here to read the Stakeholder Engagement Summary Report .
Your views have been combined with knowledge from a working group of ecological experts from each of the organisations on the Pilot Area Team involved in producing the pilot LNRS. This has created a list of outcomes that are a priority for the Buckinghamshire pilot LNRS.
The list of priority biodiversity outcomes that were produced in the pilot are provided at Section 2 of the Buckinghamshire Pilot Draft Local Nature Recovery Strategy .
As part of the pilot LNRS, Local Habitat Maps are being produced to identify the existing distribution of different habitat types and the location of areas already important for biodiversity, overlaid by locations considered suitable for delivering the outcomes and measures identified by stakeholders.
The habitat maps that were produced in the pilot are provided at Section 3 of the Buckinghamshire Pilot Draft Local Nature Recovery Strategy .
Please note: We have presented two illustrative local habitat maps in the final pilot report, to show the process of construction a map from the methodology tested and followed. However, the LNRS Pilot Area Team believes there is a substantial amount of additional work that would be required to complete the SCP process to reach a finished mapping product. Currently, therefore, the maps presented are not complete enough (for example in terms of what has been included in the baseline coverage map, and in terms of bringing in stakeholder input to the map modelling process) to have confidence in them being used as a prototype for creating the Local Habitat Map for the actual forthcoming Buckinghamshire LNRS. That said, the process has enabled many lessons to be learned by the team in preparedness for working towards final Local Nature Recovery Strategies in due course.
Due to the speed of completion of the pilot LNRS process neither the Statement of Biodiversity Priorities nor the two illustrative Local Habitats Maps have received political approval beyond that required for the submission of the LNRS protype products to the government at the end of Pilot.