Cheshire region Local Nature Partnership    

LOCAL NATURE PARTNERSHIPS    
The Natural Environment White Paper, recognised that partnership working is the best way to achieve effective action for the natural environment and set out a vision for Local Nature Partnerships (LNPs). Once established, their overall purpose will be to bring a diverse range of individuals, businesses and organisations together at a local level to create a vision and plan of action of how the natural environment can be taken into account in decision making.

DEFRA's vision for Local Nature Partnerships is that they will:

• demonstrate local leadership, raising awareness about the vital services and benefits which a healthy natural environment brings for people, communities and the local economy.
• use their knowledge and expertise to develop a shared environmental vision and set of priorities for their area (this could highlight how protection and enhancement of the natural environment can bring economic and social benefits or could include measures to establish and improve local ecological networks at a landscape scale);
• add value to a local area's development through contributing to local authority plans that affect the environment, as well as local plans and local development frameworks;
• help contribute to the Green Economy by, for example, providing relevant information for Local Enterprise Partnerships in development of their plans;
• bring together a range of stakeholders, which may include people from local authorities, businesses, statuatory authorities, civil society organisations, land managers, local record centres, local enterprise partnerships and people from communities themselves who can align efforts and make best use of available resources;
• co-operate with other partnerships where this results in more efficient use of resources and better outcomes. Co-operation can also be with partnerships that share common interests;
• work at a landscape scale to improve the range of benefits and services we get from a healthy natural environment. They will aim to improve the multiple benefits we receive from good management of the land through, for example, constituent members supporting Nature Improvement Areas, biodiversity offsets pilots or similar schemes; and
• form at a level that can take a strategic-enough approach to deliver integrated outcomes with a wide range of benefits. DEFRA anticipate around 50 Partnerships across England. However, they will not prescribe that Partnerships should cover a particular spatial area or administrative boundary, as they want to encourage them to form around the places, areas and natural systems that work best locally.

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LOCAL NATURE PARTNERSHIPS FUND
DEFRA established a one-off £1million fund to support capacity building activities that will help people prepare for applying to be recognised as a Local Nature Partnership later in 2012. The fund has two objectives:

1. To enable existing environmental partnerships who aspire to become Local Nature Partnerships, to broaden their agenda, membership and vision - to better reflect those of a Local Nature Partnership.
2. To support some partnership development work in areas where no partnership currently exists. This would create a strong foundation for those aspiring to become Local Nature Partnerships.
   

CHESHIRE REGION LNP
Cheshire Wildlife Trust, on behalf of the Cheshire region Biodiversity Partnership and Cheshire Green Infrastructure Forum submitted an application to the Local Nature Partnerships fund. The application was successful in gaining transition funding.

• Application for the Local Nature Partnership Fund from the Cheshire region