Priority Habitat Creation and Restoration Projects in England

England's Environment Agency maintains a GIS dataset tracking projects to create and restore priority habitats, as defined by the UK Biodiversity Action Plan and the Environmental Improvement Plan. The dataset lists projects completed from April 2009 onwards, with the majority undertaken in partnership with other organisations. It forms part of the evidence base for the England Biodiversity Strategy.

Use Cases

• Monitoring progress towards national biodiversity targets based on project completion years.
• Identifying geographic areas of habitat creation and restoration activity for conservation planning.
• Evaluating the Environment Agency's partnership network in habitat projects.
• Assessing the impact of the Environmental Improvement Plan on wildlife-rich habitat definitions.

Strengths

• Data is curated by a national government agency (Environment Agency), suggesting authoritative sourcing.
• Provides a consistent time series of project completion from April 2009 onwards.
• Explicitly includes habitats redefined as 'wildlife-rich' under the Environmental Improvement Plan.

Limitations

• Critical metadata is missing: no column names, row counts, or specific license terms are provided.
• The exact spatial granularity (e.g., point, polygon) and attribute details of the GIS data are unknown.
• All platforms list the same last update timestamp (2026-05-01), which is a future date, casting doubt on data freshness.

Provenance

Source

Environment Agency (UK)

Collection Method

Projects undertaken by the Environment Agency, often in partnership with other organisations.

Time Range

April 2009 onwards

Freshness

2026-05-01 14:25:10.152112

Geography

England