B-Lines East

notPlanned

Habitat data was collected from relevant records centres and organisations, including Natural England's publicly available data. Relevant habitats within these datasets were then assigned a value for pollinators as either key or beneficial, and buffered accordingly (key within SSSI= 500m; key outside SSSI= 250m; beneficial within SSSI= 250m; beneficial outside SSSI= unbuffered). These buffered polygons were then merged to create a single layer of 'core B-Lines habitat'. A resistance layer was then produced using the CEH Landcover 2007 data, assigning a score for each habitat on ease for pollinators to move across the landscape (e.g. permeability). The freeware Linkage Mapper software then analysed the connections between these habitats, considering the resistance layer, producing an output of the best potential connections between habitat patches while considering barriers to movement. A0 maps were then created showing these connections and used at workshops with local experts from a range of organisations and interest groups to create a B-Lines network for each county. These routes were drawn onto A0 maps as simple lines using marker pens by the workshop attendees using the mapped connections to inform them, combined with their own knowlege of habitats on the ground, opportunities and barriers to B-Line delivery. These proposed B-Lines were then digitised, buffered to create 3km corridors and a process of consultation and refinement undertaken involving moving, adding and removing lines to produce a final B-Lines network. The final network contains no habitat or site data.