Find out more about a landscape-scale projects Nature After Minerals helped convene and coordinate.
Trent and Thame Futurescape
NAM helped convene and coordinate a landscape-scale project to maximise biodiversity gain from a number of quarrying sites along the valleys of the rivers Trent and Thame. In 2015 and 2016 there were six Mineral Local Plans (MLPs) covering the area – Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire and Warwickshire – all being reviewed over a similar timeframe.
This offered an opportunity to develop minerals planning policies that promoted the strategic, co-ordinated and landscape-scale approach consistently across county boundaries. This, in turn, helped to establish a coherent and resilient network of wetlands across the whole of the Trent and Tame River Valleys.
OxCam Arc
To close a "missing link" in the strategic road network, the Government has proposed a new major road – an Expressway – to reduce journey times between Oxford and Cambridge and to enable development of up to a million new homes across the corridor.
This huge scale of development, in an already crowded part of England, will require careful planning so as to achieve a net gain for wildlife whilst delivering such a huge infrastructure project. The project will also require a huge amounts of aggregates to deliver the roads, homes, schools and offices that this increased population will require. Extracting minerals from the best locations, and delivering excellent and joined-up restorations will play a huge part in the project leaving a positive legacy for wildlife.
Landscape scale advisory sheets
Landscape scale conservation
Over the past decade, there has been an increasing push from the environmental sector for a stepwise change in how we conserve our natural environment, moving from site-specific silo-thinking to a larger-scale, multi-site, multi-partnered approach.
Case studies
Our Case Studies pages showcase the great work which is already being undertaken across the minerals and planning sectors to help enhance and protect the natural world and leave a lasting legacy for the benefit and enjoyment of future generations.
