Leicestershire & Rutland Wildlife Trust

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Creating habitats in the wider countryside

Lead partner

• Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust

Habitat Creation Plan

Aim:

Increase the area of land managed in a wildlife friendly way in Leicestershire and Rutland

Guidelines for habitat creation

Create new habitat corresponding to one of three broad categories throughout Leicestershire and Rutland:

• Wetland (open water and/or land which has impeded drainage and retains water for part or all of the year or which floods regularly)
• Woodland (land covered with trees or scrub – either planted or naturally regenerating)
• Open land (land with no or low intensity management with little of no agricultural inputs. Includes unmown rough grassland, regenerating natural vegetation and sown or planted vegetation)

Create new habitat on intensively managed land to increase habitat diversity

Create new habitat on former mineral extraction sites. Minimise intervention to allow these sites to develop new plant communities and species assemblages

Create new habitat in areas of current high wildlife value (Charnwood Forest, Soar Valley, Leighfield Forest, Rutland Limestone, Rutland Water) to increase landscape connectivity

In areas where historic habitats remain use new habitat creation to buffer or link sites if possible. The nature of the buffering habitat is immaterial provided it does not compromise the wildlife value of the existing habitat

Where ecological conditions and resources allow create UK BAP priority habitats to buffer and extend existing priority habitat

Provide advice on habitat creation and management

Record details of habitat creation projects and maintain on a GIS database.

Publish examples of good habitat creation schemes in an annual report

Investigate the use of remote sensing data such as Land Cover Map 2007 as the basis for a baseline habitat survey of Leicestershire and Rutland and for monitoring change at a landscape scale when repeat surveys become available

Click here to download further guidelines for habitat creation projects in Leicestershire and Rutland.