What is a Local Nature Recovery Strategy?
Overview
A Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) is a spatial strategy — introduced by the Environment Act 2021 — that maps, for a particular area of England, where action for nature would do the most good. Each strategy is prepared by a "responsible authority" (typically an upper-tier local authority or combined authority) and covers the whole of England when the mosaic of strategies is complete.
An LNRS has two core outputs: a statement of biodiversity priorities for the area, and a local habitat map showing areas of importance and areas of opportunity for nature recovery.
Why it matters for BNG
LNRS is the connective tissue between local nature planning and the BNG metric:
- It is the emerging basis for the high tier of strategic significance — habitat delivered in an LNRS-identified location can earn the ×1.15 multiplier.
- It therefore steers where off-site gains go, aligning private BNG investment with a public, democratically-set spatial plan for nature.
- Its habitat maps are a genuinely new opportunity dataset — not a constraint layer, but a "where should we act?" layer.
How it works — England
- England is divided into 48 LNRS areas covering the whole country with no gaps or overlaps, each assigned a single responsible authority (typically an upper-tier or combined authority) by the Secretary of State under s.104 of the Environment Act 2021.
- That authority prepares the strategy for its area, in collaboration with local partners and Natural England, and publishes a statement of biodiversity priorities and a local habitat map.
- Planning and BNG decisions reference the LNRS — most concretely through the strategic significance multiplier in the metric.
Strategies have been rolling out area by area, so at any moment coverage and maturity vary across England. Whether an LNRS applies — and how developed its mapping is — depends on the specific responsible authority.
LNRS coverage is being built up across England rather than switched on everywhere at once. Always check the current status of the LNRS for the relevant area before relying on it for strategic significance.
How a priority becomes checkable, not just a strategy
"The LNRS flags this location" is a claim, and like any claim in a BNG assessment it needs to be checkable by someone who wasn't in the room when it was made. The statement of biodiversity priorities is a narrative document — it explains why an area matters, but it isn't spatial and it isn't the thing a metric calculation actually references. The local habitat map is what does the work, and it is built from three components defined by Defra's national data standard so that every one of the 48 areas structures its map the same way, even though what goes into each one is decided locally:
| Layer | What it captures |
|---|---|
| Areas of Particular Importance for Biodiversity (APIB) | Existing designated and irreplaceable sites — the "already valuable" layer. |
| Areas that Could Become of particular importance for Biodiversity (ACB) | Opportunity land where nature recovery action would deliver the greatest benefit. |
| Mapped Measures | The layer that actually names a priority level, a measure code, and a description for specific locations — the closest thing an LNRS has to "if you deliver this habitat here, it counts." |
That third layer is the one a planning team or ecology team actually needs, not the broad opportunity shading most people picture when they hear "LNRS map." Sitting inside the ACB boundary is not the same as sitting on a mapped measure that matches the habitat being proposed — see Strategic Significance Explained for how that distinction plays out in the metric.
In practice, each responsible authority publishes its own map independently — usually as downloadable GIS layers (Shapefile or GeoJSON) through its own web map (commonly an Esri ArcGIS Experience site), not through one central government portal. Defra has been developing a national aggregating viewer, but it is not yet the authoritative access point for every area's data — go to the specific responsible authority's own published map, not a screenshot or a third party's summary of it, and note its publication or version date: because maps are revised area by area, a claim checked against last year's version can already be stale.
Some authorities publish rich, attribute-complete GIS layers with a clear measure code and description on every polygon; others publish a static PDF map with the prose priorities alongside it. Both are legitimate LNRS outputs, but only the former is something you can programmatically check a site boundary against — for the latter, verification means reading the document, not running a spatial query.
Nation differences
LNRS is an England instrument of the Environment Act 2021. The other nations pursue spatial nature strategy through their own frameworks (e.g. Scotland's and Wales' nature-recovery and area-based approaches) rather than an identically-defined LNRS.
Related datasets
- LNRS Local Habitat Maps — the spatial output of each strategy, and the basis for the strategic significance high tier.
WildStack's take
LNRS is the most interesting thing to happen to nature data in England in years — a public, spatial, opportunity-focused layer, not just another constraint polygon — and it is also the most uneven. Its usefulness in any given place is entirely a function of how seriously the responsible authority took the mapping. Where done well, it turns BNG's strategic significance multiplier into real spatial planning for nature; where done thinly, it risks becoming a shape on a map that unlocks a ×1.15 without much ecological logic behind it. Our advice: read the LNRS for the area before siting off-site gains, treat its habitat map as an opportunity finder rather than gospel, and check its maturity — a young LNRS and a mature one are very different evidence.
Official sources
- Local nature recovery strategies — GOV.UK
- Local nature recovery strategies: areas and responsible authorities — GOV.UK
- Environment Act 2021 — legislation.gov.uk
Last reviewed
13 July 2026. Revisit as LNRS publication progresses, if the statutory role of LNRS in planning or in the metric is strengthened, or if Defra's aggregating national map viewer becomes the authoritative access point (rather than each authority's own portal).