Agenda item

HAVERING NATURE CONSERVATION & BIODIVERSITY STRATEGY

Minutes:

Councillor Andrew Curtin, Cabinet Member for Culture, Towns and Communities, introduced the report

 

The report sought Member approval for a Nature Conservation and Biodiversity Strategy for Havering, which would provide a framework for the Council and its partners to progress nature conservation and biodiversity work in the borough for the next three years (2014-16).

 

Havering’s Local Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) was now over 10 years old and was in need of updating.  This update should take account of the significant progress that had been made in promoting, protecting and enhancing biodiversity in the borough in the last decade, as well as the new challenges facing those involved in the delivery of the nature conservation agenda.  

 

Havering had wildlife and wild places to be proud of.  As an outer London Borough encircled by Green Belt land, Havering was custodian of countryside and wildlife that was important not only for those that lived and worked in the borough but for many other Londoners as well.  Even among the outer London boroughs, Havering’s biodiversity was notable.  Its historic parks, river valleys and Thames-side marshland held a significant proportion of London’s entire resource of some priority habitats.  Its private gardens were home to a national priority species - the stag beetle - and Havering was also the stronghold in London for two other national priority species: water voles and great crested newts.  Within Greater London, Havering had 56% of the grazing marsh, 31% of the reed beds, 31% of the floodplain grassland, 25% of the marshland and 19% of the lakes and ponds, in all cases more than any other London borough.

 

The Strategy focused on the work that the Council and the Havering Wildlife Project, in partnership with a wide range of stakeholder organisations and residents, could do to address 18 objectives - key issues that were identified in the strategy contained within the appendix to the report.  An Action Plan was included to ensure that nature conservation and biodiversity work in Havering was significantly enhanced in the future.

 

Reasons for the decision:

 

To provide a strategic framework for Havering Council and its partners to work within, in order to better address a number of nature conservation and biodiversity issues in the borough.

 

To help ensure that the Council considered biodiversity issues in exercising its functions, as required by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006.

 

Other options considered:

 

The option of not providing a strategic framework was rejected as it would result in a diminution of the work that Havering Council and partners would be able progress, to address the nature conservation and biodiversity issues facing the borough.

 

Cabinet:

 

Agreed to the Havering Nature Conservation and Biodiversity Strategy as set out in in the appendix to the report.

 

 

Supporting documents: