About the partnership
Who we are
The Berkshire Local Nature Partnership is the county-wide body that brings together everyone with a stake in Berkshire's natural environment — and gives them one table to sit around.
What a Local Nature Partnership is
Local Nature Partnerships were established across England following the 2011 Natural Environment White Paper, The Natural Choice. The idea was simple and still holds: nature does not stop at a council boundary, a landholding or a remit, so the people responsible for it should not work as though it does.
An LNP has no statutory powers of its own. Its influence comes from convening — from being the one place where a planning officer, a farmer, an ecologist, a water company and a volunteer recorder can look at the same evidence and agree what to do about it. In Berkshire that has meant a shared view of the county's habitats since long before nature recovery had a legal framework attached to it.
What we are here for
Berkshire's Local Nature Recovery Strategy is now published, and the partnership's central job is to see it delivered. That means four things in particular:
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Holding the whole picture
Nature recovery in Berkshire is being done by dozens of organisations, mostly with their own funding, priorities and timescales. Someone has to know how it fits together, where the gaps are, and where two bodies are about to do the same thing twice. That is us.
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Keeping the evidence honest
The partnership works from shared data — habitat mapping, species records, condition assessments — rather than from anyone's individual account of how things are going. Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre holds the county's biological records and produced much of the mapping behind the strategy.
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Speaking for nature in Berkshire
On local plans, on national consultations, on funding rounds: a single, evidenced county-wide position carries considerably more weight than six separate ones, and takes less of everybody's time to produce.
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Making it possible to act
Advice for landowners, introductions between organisations, help finding the right funding route, and a clear answer to the question we are asked most often — what would actually help, here, on this bit of ground?
How the partnership is organised
The partnership works through an Executive Board, which sets direction and holds the partnership's relationships with government and funders, and a Steering Group, which does the delivery work and brings the sectors together in practice. Both draw their members from across the partnership rather than from any one organisation.
Around them sits a much wider network: the local authorities, national agencies, conservation charities, records centres, landowner and farming representatives, water companies, universities, businesses and the many volunteer groups who do a great deal of the actual recording and management.
Who is involved
Berkshire's Local Nature Recovery Strategy was prepared by the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead as the responsible authority appointed by Defra, working with Bracknell Forest Council, Reading Borough Council, Slough Borough Council, West Berkshire Council, Wokingham Borough Council and Natural England.
The evidence and mapping behind it were produced with the Thames Valley Environmental Records Centre (TVERC), the University of Reading, the Forestry Commission, the Environment Agency and Natural England.
Beyond the strategy's authors, the partnership's network takes in wildlife trusts and conservation charities, landowner and farming bodies, natural history and recording societies, community and parish-level groups, water companies and local businesses — the organisations that between them manage, monitor and speak for most of Berkshire's land.
The full member directory is being rebuilt. The previous Berkshire LNP website carried a Nature Directory of more than a hundred organisations working on nature in the county. We are checking each entry before bringing it across, so that what you find here is current rather than merely long. If your organisation should be listed, tell us.
Work with the partnership
We are always interested in hearing from organisations, landowners and groups doing work that fits Berkshire's nature recovery priorities — or who would like to.