November 2023 to August 2024

Stakeholder engagement to species recovery: The next phase of LNRS in 2024

The following workstreams commenced in November and the following progress has taken place.

Stakeholder engagement

In January 2024 Natural Cambridgeshire began leading on hosting a range of stakeholder engagement events, including:

  • Expert engagement
  • Farmer and landowner engagement
  • Development group (also known as Natural Cambridgeshire Policy and Planning Forum)
  • Community engagement
  • Interest groups

Further information can be found in our stakeholder engagement plan.

In February – April 2024 the following surveys and questionnaires were launched to understand the following:

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) – have your say! To understand:

  • The public’s thoughts and ideas on shaping nature recovery in the county.
  • The public’s relationship with their local nature environment and which aspects of nature are most important and why.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) – survey for local groups and organisations. To capture:

  • The views, ideas, plans and priorities that local groups and organisations would like to contribute towards the development of our LNRS.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) – survey for farmers and landowners. To capture:

  • The views, ideas, plans and priorities that farmers and landowners would like to contribute towards the development of our LNRS.

Overall, we received just over 1300 responses to the surveys and questionnaires above and further information can be found here.

Data and evidence workstream

Mapping outputs

Natural Capital Solutions have been supporting the LNRS Production Team to create the mapping elements of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough LNRS. The following steps have been completed.

  1. A data request was circulated to stakeholders and partners.
  2. Updated habitat mapping with data was received from the data request (step 1).
  3. Enhanced habitat mapping was received, with Natural Capital Solutions identifying any gaps in the data.
  4. A nature capital assessment undertaken with new baseline data. Mapping outputs plotted using the new baseline data. Opportunity maps, the Local Habitat Map and the mapping of measures developed
  5. Mapping elements prepared to be used in the consultation process.

Species recovery

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Environmental Record Centre (CPERC) have been working on developing the Species Priority List to identify species recovery in our LNRS. Using the species guidance released by Defra, CPERC have undertaken the following steps:

  1. Created a long list of species in the county, with an initial first step to create a ‘long-list of species’ in the county. This list was then reviewed by county recorders to make a ‘recommendation’ of species they had identified as suitable candidates for the Priority List of species.
  2. Long list refined to a short list using an agreed criteria.
  3. Priority Species list agreed.

A species working group has been organised to agree the Priority Species list and identify potential measures for each species. This work has now been completed and will be fed into the draft chapters of our LNRS.

Prioritisation process

Outputs from the following workstreams have been collated to create the draft long list of habitat priorities and potential measures for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough.

  • Stakeholder Engagement
  • Data and Evidence
  • Land use Strategies and Policies
  • Wider Environmental Benefits

The long list of habitat priorities and potential measures was then taken through a prioritisation process to agree a short list of habitat priorities. This work is currently underway.