Thank you to everyone who responded to our LNRS Issues and Options consultation that ran from 15 January until 10 March this year. The next round of public consultation will take place in early 2025. Keep an eye on our website for updates or sign up to our consultation database to receive direct communications here Get Involved In Planning and click on the ‘Register on the planning consultation database’ link.

Worcestershire's landscape and wildlife

Worcestershire is home to an amazing diversity of landscapes and wildlife, with nationally significant resources of:

• traditional orchards
• ancient woodlands and trees
• lowland meadows
• floodplain meadows

Worcestershire contains nationally protected landscapes including parts of two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (the Malvern Hills National Landscape and the Cotswolds National Landscape) and internationally protected sites such as Bredon Hill Special Area of Conservation. 

Why we need a strategy

Nature underpins our society and economy, providing us with clean air, water, soil and carbon storage. Access to nature is vital for our physical and mental wellbeing.

Despite this, our natural environment faces unprecedented pressures: since the 1970s around half of our biodiversity has been lost, with 1 in 6 species regularly monitored across Great Britain now facing extinction.

The nation’s State of Nature Report 2023 shows that, in the UK:

• numbers of farmland birds have declined by 58% on average
• pollinating insect species, including bees, hoverflies, and moths, have declined in distribution by an average of 18%
• just 7% of land in England is protected for wildlife

Worcestershire County Council has been appointed as the Responsible Authority for preparation of the county’s Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS). This strategy, alongside those prepared by other Responsible Authorities across England, will be a key mechanism for delivery of Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan.

The LNRS will be the definitive spatial plan for nature’s recovery in Worcestershire. It will identify local priorities for action that will restore habitats and conserve species, and measures that we should take to deliver those priorities.