Opportunity Mapping

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Regional and  Local Opportunity Mapping

The Document “Enhancing Biodiversity across the West Midlands” sets out to demonstrate, to local planning authorities, how Local Opportunity Mapping for biodiversity in the West Midlands will make a major contribution to achieving national and regional policy objectives and statutory requirements for enhancing biodiversity.  The maintenance and enhancement of biodiversity is of fundamental importance because it is:

  • an integral part of sustainable development;
  • an essential component of improving quality of life;
  • critical to our future health and well being;
  • important for economic development and regeneration;
  • an expectation of government policy; and
  • a statutory obligation.

The gudiance outlines how the regional opportunity map should be used in the development of local opportunity maps.  It also makes it clear that local opportunity mapping is key to the spatial representation of regional priorities and that these local maps need to feed into a number local documents.  The Regional Green Infrastructure Prospectus (more info on Green Infrastrusture is available here) makes ot clear that the Landscapes for Living project would provide the biodiversity input into Green Infrstructure Strategies. Since the production of the Green Infrastructure Prospectus the WMBP Landscapes for Living project has been busy developing the regional biodiversity vision and opportunity map (see below). Further planning guidance has also been produced to show how local opportunity mapping should feature within Green Infrastrusture. Additional background information on planning and biodiversity can be downloaded here.

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 The flowchart below provides a simplified outline of the sequence of mapping required for local planning documents, Green Infrastructure strategies and plan and for climate change stratgies and plan. It is important that as more local information is used to develop the local opportunity maps that this information is fed back up to the regional level to inform future iterations of the regional map.

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Guidance for Local Opportunity Mapping

The Regional Opportunity Map is intended to show regionally important opportunities such as priorities for landscape scale enhancement of regionally important habitats on a regional scale.  The shaded opportunity areas and other opportunity areas such as SRCs and urban areas and growth points are shown as overlaid on top of the regional biodiversity map.  The biodiversity base map was constructed by combining all habitats using regionally data that was consistent across the region and displayed at LDU level.  Local Opportunity Maps need to add value to the regional map, they need to reflect the regional priorities outlined on the regional opportunity map but should also provide further details taking account of local knowledge and consider local opportunities for local priorities for habitats and for species.

The six ‘county’ based LBAPs should be the sub-regional scale used for local opportunity mapping.  These local maps need to be created taking account of local circumstances,  The LFL regional project not dictate the methodology for producing these maps.  However certain standard outputs are required taking account of the following;

  • Local scale
  • Individual habitats & species  priorities
  • On the ground feasibility for enhancement
  • Existing or potential delivery mechanisms
  • Ecosystem services
  • LBAP priorities (objectives and targets)
  • Local socio/economic objectives
  • Local strategies such as Green Infrastructure
  • LDF and policy-planning proposals

The local maps should be used to provide a reality check to the regional map and to help revise the regional map.

The local maps should be produced in a way that local people understand, perhaps by producing a commentary to accompany them. Further guidance can be downloaded here.

 

Regional 50 Year Vision & Opportunity Map

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Please note some minor amendments to the map and legend are still required.

 

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  Click on map and legend to download pdf

Please note some minor amendments to the map and legend are still required, Stoke needs to be indentified as a Growth Point and text needs to be added to explain the biodversity opportunities that can be achieved within growth points.

A full schedule of all the areas identifed on the Regional Biodviersity Vision and Opportunity Map is currently in preparation and will be added to this site as soon as it has been completed.

Regional Biodiversity Map

The Opportunity map uses the Regional Biodiversity Map as as base and the Landscapes for Living prospectus and the technical report supporting this project provides more information on the production of the map.  There are 3 zones identifed along with the Strategic River Corridors and the urban areas(towns and cities). 

Zone 1 - Large inter-connected landscapes, rich in biodiversity and providing life-supporting ecological networks.

Zone 2 - Extensive areas of habitat linking and buffering other areas and supporting multiple needs.

Zone 3 - Generally smaller, more isolated areas of habitat, often in highly modified landscapes, supporting mixed uses and providing ecosystem services

Cities and towns include valuable biodiversity habitats and features and play a vital role in providing greenspace for urban dwellers.

Rivers & floodplains include important wetland habitats, connect rural and urban landscapes and are important for supporting biodiversity and ecosystem services.

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