Find out about changes to our services and Christmas opening times on our Festive information page. To find out when your bin will be collected over the festive period, visit Changes to County Durham bin collections at Christmas.

Due to maintenance, the following systems will be unavailable from 11.45am on Tuesday 24 December until 8.00am on Thursday 2 January: our online Council Tax, business rates and housing benefit services, and our welfare assistance form. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

Help us develop our Local Nature Recovery Strategy for County Durham

If you are passionate about nature and want to protect it for future generations, please get involved - we'd love to hear from you.

What's the latest?

Thank you to everyone who responded to our survey. We are also carrying out activities in primary and secondary schools, and holding focus sessions with conservation groups, farmers and landowners. The information being gathered is helping us understand which habitats and species groups we should focus on, and how to improve wildlife habitats. We are planning on publishing our draft Local Nature Recovery Strategy Map and Statement of Biodiversity Priorities in November 2024, when you will have another opportunity to comment on it, before it's finalised and sent for agreement. We hope to publish the finalised strategy in the Spring 2025.

Background

We are working to develop a Local Nature Recovery Strategy for the county. The Strategy will support the county's diverse range of landscapes and wildlife. We need to create:

a local habitat map identifying the most valuable existing wildlife areas and also map the areas that could be used for creating or improving habitat for nature in the future
a statement of biodiversity priorities which will detail the habitats and species which are the most important for the county and include the opportunities, priorities and plans for nature recovery

How we would like you to help

The LNRS will identify our current priorities for nature and help direct resources to those identified habitats and species. It will be updated on a regular basis and these priorities may change in the future.

We need your help in deciding what our priority habitats and species should be in this first version of the LNRS and where we should be concentrating our efforts. We wanted you to tell us about your experiences of nature in County Durham, what you think the priorities for nature recovery should be and what are the most important ways to support nature recovery. We also wanted to know which areas of the county you think are valuable for existing wildlife or where there are opportunities to enhance or create new wildlife spaces.

Have your say

The closing date for comments was 5.00pm on 16 April 2024.

Contact Ecology

Email ecology@durham.gov.uk
Telephone 03000 267 135

Document downloads

Privacy notice - consultations (PDF, 105 KB)(opens new window)