Berkshire's Local Nature Recovery Strategy

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Now is a really exciting time for nature.



We need to think about where Berkshire nature needs our help the most and how people can benefit from giving nature a hand. Help us decide.

Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs) are spatial strategies to recover nature across England: part of the 2021 Environment Act. Together, they will cover the country in a Nature Recovery Network (NRN).

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead are excited to be the Responsible Authority (RA) for our Berkshire LNRS. Bracknell, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire and Wokingham are supporting authorities with Natural England. They are helping to contribute to the strategy. Updates on the progress of the LNRS are posted below.


Visualisation of stakeholder views on Berkshire Nature Recovery. Credits to Natalie Ganpatsingh.


Each LNRS will map areas of current particular importance for biodiversity, and work with partners from many groups, from landowners to businesses, to eNGOs, and the public. Priorities for nature recovery will be agreed and these will be used to create a local habitat map. These will depict what needs to happen to achieve the agreed aims for nature. This will link up with delivery mechanisms, such as Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) for planning and Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes for land management including farming.


Find a blog here from Natural England for more information on Local Nature Recovery Strategies.

Now is a really exciting time for nature.



We need to think about where Berkshire nature needs our help the most and how people can benefit from giving nature a hand. Help us decide.

Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs) are spatial strategies to recover nature across England: part of the 2021 Environment Act. Together, they will cover the country in a Nature Recovery Network (NRN).

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead are excited to be the Responsible Authority (RA) for our Berkshire LNRS. Bracknell, Reading, Slough, West Berkshire and Wokingham are supporting authorities with Natural England. They are helping to contribute to the strategy. Updates on the progress of the LNRS are posted below.


Visualisation of stakeholder views on Berkshire Nature Recovery. Credits to Natalie Ganpatsingh.


Each LNRS will map areas of current particular importance for biodiversity, and work with partners from many groups, from landowners to businesses, to eNGOs, and the public. Priorities for nature recovery will be agreed and these will be used to create a local habitat map. These will depict what needs to happen to achieve the agreed aims for nature. This will link up with delivery mechanisms, such as Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) for planning and Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes for land management including farming.


Find a blog here from Natural England for more information on Local Nature Recovery Strategies.

Updates

Updates on the Local Nature Recovery Strategy regularly posted here. 


Update January 2024


The Berkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy is truly underway!

Stakeholder Engagement Events

We are excited to be beginning work with Just Ideas, who have been commissioned for creation of engagement strategy, delivery of strategy including 11 workshops and evaluation. In March, 3 workshops will be focussed at farmers, land owners and woodland managers – where as well as finding out priorities for nature we will be providing support on Biodiversity Net Gain and registering interest in signing up to the LNRS. 6 workshops in April will be spread across each Berkshire Borough, to work with local communities in finding out their priorities for nature. 1 workshop will be online also. This engagement will be accompanied by a survey where stakeholders can further engage with their thoughts on nature recovery in Berkshire. Finally, during a summer an informative, Berkshire wide event will take place, engaging people with the progress of the strategy and collecting feedback. 

Just Ideas, an engagement and facilitation company based in Reading, are supporting our stakeholder engagement and workshop design and implementation. They have created our stakeholder engagement plan, are supporting the evaluation of the workshops and are a part of many of our working groups, ensuring that sound information is collected in workshops, to influence the creation of the strategy. 

 

Data Prioritisation

Feedback from these stakeholder events will form that basis of the outputs of the Local Nature Recovery Strategy, these are primarily the Opportunity Map and the List of Priorities. Berkshire will be inputting our data layers and targets for biodiversity, gathered from our stakeholder engagement, into a programme called Marxan. With the help of TVERC, we will create maps of the best areas for nature conservation, balancing the different locally specific priorities and challenges we face in Berkshire. TVERC are also helping to create our shortlist of priority species, these will help inform our priorities for nature as well. 

After our maps and lists are complete, these will be combined with our Description of the Area of Berkshire, and will create the final LNRS document. After being checked by our supporting authorities and the RBWM Cabinet, the strategy is predicted to be published in Spring 2025. 

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  • Share Pre Consultation Stage on Facebook Share Pre Consultation Stage on Twitter Share Pre Consultation Stage on Linkedin Email Pre Consultation Stage link

    Pre Consultation Stage

    30 days ago

    The next Berkshire LNRS Phase!


    We are excited to announce that the Berkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy has reached a big milestone. A draft version of the strategy has now entered the Pre Consultation Phase: our fantastic supporting authorities (Wokingham, Slough, West Berkshire, Bracknell and Reading Borough Councils plus Natural England) are reviewing the documents. It will then be on its way to Public Consultation.


    This Public Consultation is planned to take place 2nd January - 15th February 2025. During this time, there will be an opportunity for the community of Berkshire to review the strategy documents in a public... Continue reading

  • Share Call to action on Facebook Share Call to action on Twitter Share Call to action on Linkedin Email Call to action link

    Call to action

    5 months ago

    Call to action

    We would like people to send the locations of parcels of land that would be suitable for additional nature recovery measures or management. This will help create a layer of areas more likely to be selected in our final map of prioritised locations.

    This applies to landowners and land managers, but also to community groups and individuals planning nature projects in specific areas.

    Please note, we are specifically looking for areas that could undertake nature recovery work, not areas which are already being managed for nature.

    If you possess maps: as GIS layers, PDFs or a scan... Continue reading

  • Share Our Data Prioritisation methodology on Facebook Share Our Data Prioritisation methodology on Twitter Share Our Data Prioritisation methodology on Linkedin Email Our Data Prioritisation methodology link

    Our Data Prioritisation methodology

    8 months ago

    An important part of our Berkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy is the method of choosing which areas of Berkshire to prioritise for nature recovery. We cannot select everywhere: we have to decide where is most important to focus effort on first. Here in Berkshire, we decided to input priorities from all of our stakeholders (from our workshops and survey) and from documents existing on nature recovery from various councils, public bodies and NGOs, into a piece of software called Marxan. This undergoes a process called Systematic Conservation Planning.


    More on Marxan

    Marxan is a Decision Support software tool for conservation... Continue reading

  • Share Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed on Facebook Share Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed on Twitter Share Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed on Linkedin Email Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed link

    Farmer and Landowner Workshops completed

    8 months ago

    Our three workshops for farmers, landowners, land managers and foresters have been completed.

    Below is a map of where representatives at the workshops managed land across Berkshire




    We saw representatives from the following sectors:

    Central Berkshire - (29 attendees)

    • Parish council representatives
    • Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust Representatives
    • Ecologists– Reading Borough Council
    • Farmers/Landowners x 5
    • BioCap
    • Forestry Commission
    • University of Reading – agro-environment group x3
    • Farmer cluster facilitator
    • Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead officers – Natural Environment Team and Equalities and Diversity team
    • Berkshire College of Agriculture
    • Atomic Weapons Establishment ecologist




    East Berkshire - (48 attendees)

  • Share Community workshops launched on Facebook Share Community workshops launched on Twitter Share Community workshops launched on Linkedin Email Community workshops launched link

    Community workshops launched

    8 months ago
    We are excited to make our seven community workshops, plus our survey, live today. These are opportunities for residents, community groups, businesses and NGOs to have their say on their priorities for nature recovery in Berkshire.
  • Share More workshops coming on Facebook Share More workshops coming on Twitter Share More workshops coming on Linkedin Email More workshops coming link

    More workshops coming

    10 months ago
    • 6 free Borough specific engagement events are being planned for April. These will be promoted to the public, community groups, harder to reach groups, businesses etc). These will primarily stakeholder collect priorities for nature. There will be light refreshments provided. These will be run in conjunction with a local group, e.g. the Wokingham event with Earley Environmental Group. The West Berks event may be held at the BBOWT Thatcham Nature Discovery Centre. These will include stakeholders from different disciplines. Stakeholder engagement working group is contributing to the design of these. A stakeholder engagement plan has been drafted by Just Ideas.
  • Share Workshops live! on Facebook Share Workshops live! on Twitter Share Workshops live! on Linkedin Email Workshops live! link

    Workshops live!

    10 months ago
    • 3 free farmer/landowner engagement workshops are now live: Wasing Estate, Windsor Great Park and Reading University Farm for farmer landowner workshops (18th, 12th and 6th March respectively). These will be catered. Opportunities to discuss priorities for nature, learn about LNRS and BNG, and to register interest in land being included in the LNRS. Farmer engagement working group is contributing to planning and advertisement of these workshops.
  • Share Engagement survey closed on Facebook Share Engagement survey closed on Twitter Share Engagement survey closed on Linkedin Email Engagement survey closed link

    Engagement survey closed

    10 months ago
    • Our engagement survey has closed and analysis has been undertaken, assisting workshop design – locations and timings of workshops, other community events to present the LNRS at.
  • Share Data Prioritisation Working Group on Facebook Share Data Prioritisation Working Group on Twitter Share Data Prioritisation Working Group on Linkedin Email Data Prioritisation Working Group link

    Data Prioritisation Working Group

    10 months ago
    • Data prioritisation group being set up and refined. Meeting every fortnight. An important piece of work to refine targets for conservation features and data sets to be input into Marxan, ideas coming from stakeholder engagement workshops. Representation from GIS officers of boroughs, TVERC, NE, ecologists of Boroughs, Bob Smith, BBOWT, community interest groups, Just Ideas, University of Reading and NWD National Landscape.
  • Share TVERC commissioned to undertake our data prioritisation work on Facebook Share TVERC commissioned to undertake our data prioritisation work on Twitter Share TVERC commissioned to undertake our data prioritisation work on Linkedin Email TVERC commissioned to undertake our data prioritisation work link

    TVERC commissioned to undertake our data prioritisation work

    10 months ago
    • TVERC have been commissioned for data prioritisation of the Berkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy using SCP (Systematic Conservation Planning)/Marxan, supported by Bob Smith at University of Kent. More information on Marxan here: Home - Marxan (marxansolutions.org)
Page last updated: 23 Oct 2024, 04:16 PM