Wiltshire and Swindon Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS)

Dear Sir/ Madam,

I am writing to you about the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) for Wiltshire and Swindon, and to invite you to book a place on one of our upcoming in person workshops to help us identify priorities and measures for nature recovery.

To remind you, the LNRS is a requirement for Wiltshire and Swindon councils to prepare in 2024. This link will take you to the Government’s website should you wish to remind yourself why this is necessary and important. Local nature recovery strategies – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

We are undertaking a challenging process to identify all priorities and measures for nature recovery in our area:

• Usability testing
• Longlist of priorities and measures – all data
• Online survey to identify further priorities and measures
• Shortlisting of priorities and measures – refined and focused data
• County-wide roadshows to identify how priorities and measures should be located on the ground
• Preparation of LNRS mapping package, report and interactive website.

So far, we have met with potential users to understand how to design our system so that it meets the needs of all relevant user groups.

This next stage is to develop a long list of all possible priorities and measures, and this is where we are asking for your further assistance. Our task at this stage is to put together a long list of all options for priorities (the outcomes we wish to achieve for nature) and measures (the actions we need to take to reach those outcomes).

We will be holding three sessions for you to choose from where we are inviting you, anybody from your organisation who may be interested, and any contacts that you may wish to pass this invitation to. The sessions will be around three hours in locations across the county. We aim to have as many people as possible attend so that we can hear a wide range of views.

The venues and times are as follows:

For each session, check-in will start at 1.30pm with a prompt 2pm start. The session will conclude at or before 5pm. Light refreshments will be served. Please note, these workshops will be duplicated across each venue, so you only need to attend one session.

The session will be interactive, and we will be asking all participants to help us create a rich and robust longlist. The longlist will be added to by an online survey so that nothing is missed. When this part of the process is concluded, the long list will be vetted by a select working group and a concise shortlist of priorities and measures will be prepared. This will then be tested at a series of online and in person events that will take place across Wiltshire in late Spring.

Please help us with this important project and register for the session you wish to attend via the links above.

We would appreciate it if you could send this invitation on to any colleagues or contacts you feel should attend these sessions to share their knowledge. We would also encourage you to sign up to our LNRS mailing list here, if you haven’t done so already, to ensure you receive Wiltshire and Swindon LNRS updates, invitations to events as well as our upcoming online survey straight to your inbox.

If you have any questions about Wiltshire and Swindon LNRS or these events, you can email us at localnaturerecoverystrategy@wiltshire.gov.uk.

Thank you and I look forward to meeting you in person at one of our sessions.

Yours faithfully

Alison Levy

Local Nature Recovery Strategy Officer

Natural and Historic Environment

Wiltshire Council

Web: www.wiltshire.gov.uk