Berkshire Local Nature Partnership

Local Nature Recovery Strategy

Berkshire's strategy for nature

A statutory, spatial plan for where and how nature recovers across the county — published in October 2025, and one of 48 strategies that together cover the whole of England.

What a Local Nature Recovery Strategy is

Local Nature Recovery Strategies were created by the Environment Act 2021. Each one covers a defined area of England, and each is prepared by a responsible authority appointed by Defra. For Berkshire that is the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, working with the county's five other councils and Natural England.

Every strategy has to do three things:

  • Describe the area — its habitats, species, existing designations and the condition they are in.
  • Set priorities for recovering biodiversity, and identify the practical measures that would achieve them.
  • Map it — showing both the areas already of particular importance for biodiversity and the areas that could become important if those measures were taken.

The 48 strategies are deliberately designed to knit together at their edges, forming a national Nature Recovery Network.

What it means in practice

The strategy is not a designation and it does not change what anyone may do with their land. What it does is make the priorities explicit, and put them somewhere decisions get made:

  • For councils

    Public authorities have a duty under the Environment Act to have regard to relevant Local Nature Recovery Strategies in exercising their functions. In practice that means local plans, planning decisions, green infrastructure strategies and the management of the council's own land estate.

  • For developers

    Biodiversity Net Gain rewards habitat created in areas the local strategy identifies as a priority. The Local Habitat Map is therefore the first place to look when deciding where on-site or off-site gain will count for most.

  • For landowners and farmers

    The strategy is a guide, not an obligation. Nothing in it requires any change to how land is managed. It does show which measures are considered priorities where your land sits — useful when funding schemes ask what local priorities a proposal delivers against.

  • For everyone else

    It is a public statement of what Berkshire has agreed matters most for nature, and where. That makes it something residents and community groups can hold decision-makers to.

The published documents

Berkshire's strategy is published in four parts by the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead. These links go to the official versions — they are the authoritative record, and anything on this site is a summary of them.

The strategy was approved by RBWM Cabinet on 30 September 2025 and published on 7 October 2025. Links above go to the responsible authority's own pages so that you always reach the current version; where a document has moved, start from the RBWM Together strategy hub.

Reading the habitat map

The Local Habitat Map carries two headline layers, and the difference between them is the whole point of the strategy.

Areas of Particular Importance for Biodiversity — the baseline. Around 166 km² of Berkshire that already matters: designated sites, priority habitat, the places where the county's remaining wildlife is concentrated. The task here is to hold on to what is there and improve its condition.

Areas that Could Become of Importance for Biodiversity — the opportunity. Around 299 km², nearly twice as much, where habitat creation or a change in management would make a real difference. This is where the strategy points new effort, and where Biodiversity Net Gain and agri-environment funding will count for most.

Both are mapped against the strategy's priorities and measures, so the map answers not just where but what.

Two ways to look at it

Use the official interactive habitat map when you need the authoritative boundaries — for a planning application, a funding bid, or a decision about a specific parcel of land.

Use our guided map story when you want to understand what the strategy is actually asking for, and why. It walks through Berkshire's priorities in sequence, framed for whoever you happen to be.

See the strategy on the map

Fourteen priorities, a county's worth of habitat, and a guided route through it that starts with what matters most to you.

Explore the map Help deliver it