Project background
The City of London Corporation (CLC), National Trust, Dorney Wood Trust, Plantlife and Buckinghamshire Council have created a vision for a landscape-scale restoration project linking Burnham Beeches Special Area of Conservation and Littleworth Common Site of Special Scientific Interest.
This landscape vision proposed habitat interventions in five distinct areas within and adjacent to several sites, namely Burnham Beeches National Nature Reserve, Egypt Woods, Littleworth Common, Dorney Wood and Hunts Wood Farm.
Scope of services
This project aimed to build on the landscape vision by:
- Engaging with landowners in the area to explore the likelihood of collaboration.
- Estimating the costs of the habitat interventions set out in the vision.
- Quantifying the change in biodiversity delivered by the vision, using Defra’s Biodiversity Metric 4.0, to explore the potential for funding through Biodiversity Net Gain.
- Evaluating other future funding streams that may be available.
- Providing recommendations on how to take the project forward.
The CLC provided RSK Wilding with maps showing the ownership boundaries and contact details for the land included in the project area. Each landowner was then contacted in person, as far as was possible. These meetings were used to build up a picture of how much the landowners understood about the project proposals, what their level of interest in participating might be, and what would encourage them to participate. This work determined that two areas (Egypt Wood and Hunts Wood Farm) would need to be scoped out of the project due to the landowners being reluctant to engage.
RSK Wilding and our sister company, RSK Habitat Management, carried out visits to Littleworth Common and Dorney Wood to understand the scale and complexity of the proposals and to inform the cost estimates. Costs for habitat creation and initial management were estimated and provided to the client, along with a discussion of practical and financial factors to consider for achieving the landscape vision.
Impact
Our work for the City of London Corporation informed the ‘first steps’ in developing constructive dialogue with landowners around BNG and other funding mechanisms as this landscape vision project progresses.