Biodiversity strategy

Our Biodiversity Strategy for Basingstoke and Deane 2023 to 2029 was adopted in March 2024. It covers how we are supporting nature recovery in the borough through our work as a council and with partners, after councillors called to declare an ecological emergency in October 2021.

The strategy outlines the importance of biodiversity and its status in the borough, why it is important and its relevant legislation and policy. We collaborated with communities and partners to create it, and we continue to work with them to take forward its actions.

Our partnership working with Natural Basingstoke is particularly notable, as we coordinate nature conservation groups across the borough and care for hundreds of hectares of parks, meadows and other green spaces to benefit nature.

Below is a fully accessible PDF version of the Biodiversity Strategy for Basingstoke and Deane 2023 to 2029:

Biodiversity Strategy for Basingstoke and Deane 2023 to 2029 (accessible)(PDF) [2 Mb]

Below is a printable version of the Biodiversity Strategy for Basingstoke and Deane 2023 to 2029 which is not fully accessible:

Biodiversity Strategy for Basingstoke and Deane 2023 to 2029(PDF) [4 Mb]

Part 3 - the Action Plan: updated annually, this action plan sets out how the council is turning words into actions.

Biodiversity Strategy for Basingstoke and Deane Action Plan(PDF) [691 kb]

Strengthened biodiversity duty

The Environment Act 2021 introduced a strengthened ‘biodiversity duty’ which requires all public authorities in England to consider what they can do to conserve and enhance biodiversity. How we deliver and report on this can be found on the Strengthened Biodiversity Duty webpage.

The button below links to our first report, covering the period from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2025. Further reports will be published at least every five years.

Biodiversity report for January 2024 to December 2025

Biodiversity audit

To guide our nature recovery efforts, we previously commissioned the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust to produce a biodiversity audit of the borough. Its findings are summarised below:

• The borough sits at the apex between two geological areas and four river catchments feeding the Solent and the Thames. We straddle the river valleys and the lowlands of Hampshire and its chalk uplands in the North Wessex Downs National Landscape. We look south down the River Test and north across the heathlands of North Hampshire and Berkshire and along the Enborne and Loddon rivers, the latter starting its journey across the landscape in Basingstoke town. This diversity is what makes the borough so exceptional and such a fantastic place to live.
• We host a significant portion (around a fifth) of Hampshire’s Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (locally important protected sites). Over 90% of the borough’s nationally designated sites are in favourable or favourable recovering condition, which is on par with the county as a whole. We have an enviable 20% tree cover while 30% of the borough lies in a protected landscape. We host an important population of dormouse amongst this woodland and the substantial 4.3km of hedgerow per km². Our borough supports some of the most nationally important populations of rare arable flora, a nationally important bat roost (Greywell tunnel) and notable butterfly populations.
• However, the borough’s wetlands and associated habitats fall below the national and regional averages. We support just 87ha of fen, marsh and swamp (0.1% of the borough) which compares unfavourably to a national 9% coverage. A defining characteristic of the borough is the presence of three catchments (the Enborne, the Test and the Loddon) but the River Test is subject to significant pressures from pollution incidents and the River Loddon has been shown to have the worst phosphate levels in the country. Yet, we host a regionally important amphibian population and have key sites for dragonflies.
• Much of the borough’s heathland has been lost, and due to a lack of international and national designation is far more subject to impacts and with less access to support and funding than its neighbours in the Thames Basin Heaths. We have 25% less priority coverage than the average in Hampshire and only 5% of the land is actively managed for nature, well below the national target of 30%.

The message is clear – we have some fantastic biodiversity features of real importance but we need to do more for our heathlands and wetlands and all their associated species. We are right in declaring an ecological emergency, and we hope this strategy sets the tone moving forward.

Biodiversity Audit and Assessment Report - July 2024