- Stakeholder Engagement
- Identify and start engaging with your key stakeholders early.
- Speak to the Environment Agency and Natural England for advice on permitting and legal requirements.
- Contact any relevant LERCs and your Local Planning Authority (LPA)
2. Location and Baselining
- Desk-based baseline of site to understand feasibility (habitats, land use, species).
- Use an array of data sources: opportunity mapping portal, MAGIC maps, Liverpool City Region Ecological Network, or similar networks, LERC data, etc.
- Consult you Local Nature Recovery Strategy if published, and any other local ecological or environmental policies.
- Ground-truthing is essential; an ecologist needs to survey the site using UK Habitat Classification, plus any species surveys needed.
3. Focus and Objectives
- Consider the funding advice here to help guide decisions on what could generate income streams.
- However plans must be ecologically sound and coherent with the wider ecological landscape.
- The forthcoming LNRS will provide a priority list of species and habitats, for now you can refer to the Biodiversity Action Plans, and the national State of Nature report from 2023 (wider UK context).
- Consider identifying a key species as a flagship.
4. History
- Research the historical land-use, topography, and morphology on HeritageGateway - Historic Environment Record Details.
- This may feed into the heritage and ‘sense of place’ aspects to the project and might also open up additional funding streams.
- The historical topography/morphology can guide project design e.g. to restore the original path of watercourses.
5. Logistics and Access
- Access to site and access onsite (equipment, materials and people).
- Consider public accessibility including transport links, parking, footpaths, disability access, facilities. Especially if capitalising on health, wellbeing, recreation etc.
- Consider the impact of access on species and habitats, and how it should be limited or mitigated. Works onsite must also minimise impacts e.g. avoiding breeding season.
6. Funding Opportunities
- It it important to start considering these as early as possible, to start funding the project works.
- See the funding and investment pages.
7. Land Availability
- Land already owned should be prioritised; or high likelihood of purchasing, leasing or managing.
- Ensure the landowner is involved with project planning and is in agreement with plans.
- Needs to be suitable. Consider contamination, archeology, designated & non-designated sites.
- Security and length of tenure of the land; BNG agreement is at least 30 years, carbon credits may be >100 years.
- Landowners refer to the Green Finance Institute’s Investment Readiness Toolkit.
- May need to produce two business cases; internal/external stakeholders, and buyers/investors.
Policy, Strategy, and Legislation
To achieve local political support, and funding, it is vital that there are strong links between the programme of work, the individual project outcomes and current or emerging policies and legislation. You must consider how the project fits with:
- The emerging Local Nature Recovery Strategy
- Relevant Local Plans and planning strategies: land allocations, growth aspirations and housing targets are particularly important for BNG
- Other local initiatives such as climate change mitigation, net zero carbon, reducing flood risk, pledges to plant more woodlands etc.
- Investment and asset management plans of statutory organisations (e.g. utility and transport companies)
- Long-term plans and aspirations of government environmental bodies, large NGOs, and partnerships (e.g. catchment partnerships), including water storage, natural flood management, landscape restoration, species recovery
The Environment Act, 2021 is key, this includes:
- Development of the LNRS - for the LCR Combined Authority LNRS
- BNG- for the LCR approach to BNG on the MEAS webpage
- Enhanced Biodiversity Duty for Local Authorities
List of important policies and legislation for LCR:
- Nature Connected - the Liverpool City Region Local Nature Partnership
- Farmland species recovery project
- Merseyside Biodiversity Action Plans
- Sefton Coast Plan including nature conservation strategy
- Mersey Forest Plan
- Liverpool City Region and West Lancashire Recreation Mitigation Strategy, access on the MEAS website.
- LCR CA City Region Pathway to Net Zero, 5-year action plan.
- Integrated water plan for the Upper and Lower Mersey (see Mersey Rivers Trust)
- Catchment Management and Flooding Plans for the River Alt, Sankey etc., find them on the government website
- Local Sites Partnerships (Local Wildlife Sites)
- Other local authority action plans, for example climate change and green infrastructure - see Local Authority websites
Further important policies and legislation (national):
Developing a Business Plan
Your project needs a detailed and feasible business plan which provides a clear, comprehensive and compelling overview of the project aims, what you are offering, how you will deliver it and how much it will cost during each phase of its development and ongoing management.
This should be a live and regularly updated document and will need to: be a guide for the project team; show full costings (how much is required and when); and inform other partners, stakeholders or interested parties about the project (this could be an alternative version depending on audience).
The suggested content for a business plan is presented below, however there are many templates available online that can also help you with structure, form and tone. A good example of a business can be found in the Wyre Catchment case study.
