Natural England National Priority Focus Areas

Natural England's focus areas for each Area Team. The focus areas are typically where Natural England (NE) are targeting more than one delivery programme. So these areas are the key opportunities for Natural England to integrate its delivery to achieve better outcomes. The focus areas are the best picture NE have about where we need to concentrate effort in order to achieve our biodiversity, landscape, access, engagement and other land management objectives. They show where we currently focus more effort. The focus areas are also the best overview we have of future priorities, but this is not yet a perfect picture. We expect this map to evolve. The focus areas are not intended to represent the views or priorities of all the organisations which contribute to natural environment outcomes. However, we have taken account of other Defra partners‟ delivery programmes and also those of some other key partners. We want to have more discussions with partners and stakeholders to hear whether our local delivery offer makes sense in the context of what we are all jointly trying to achieve. The focus areas are a broad guide as to where we anticipate focusing more effort in future; but it should not be interpreted too precisely. We can adjust boundaries locally as makes sense to our delivery programmes or customers. The focus areas capture the majority of our geographically targeted work and especially where different programmes overlap, but each programme will continue to target some of its delivery elsewhere. We want to focus proportionately more of our resource in focus areas and Nature Improvement Areas (NIAs) over time, to maximise the benefits of our limited resource, and make a big difference in certain places, rather than not enough difference everywhere. This is a strong steer, but not a moratorium on projects that are outside focus areas. Small scale investment outside the focus areas, which act as a catalyst or lever for others‟ investment, may be legitimate. We have limited this approach to our terrestrial delivery at the moment. However, we have included many coastal stretches and have taken particular account of where the coast abuts a potential marine designation, to encourage integration with our marine work and to take account of the links with offshore processes such as sediment flow. While the current priority for marine work is the site designation process, we would aspire to develop marine spatial priorities over time.