LBAP Co-ordinator’s Meeting

2nd March 2006

EA Offices, Newcastle

Minutes

Present:

Donna Radley (EN)

Kathrina Mannion (DEFRA)

Nick Brodin (Regional Forum)

Steve Lowe (NWT)

Jacqui Hunter ( N. Tyneside BAP)

Derek Hilton-Brown (Newcastle BAP)

Gwynn Dunn (Tees Valley BAP) – covering maternity leave for Liz Orty

Gill Thompson (Northumberland National Park)

  1. Communications between LBAP officers and National LBAP co-ordinators. (Donna Radley).

Discussed the LBAP newsletter published by defra. Newsletter to be published electronically from now on. LBAP officers to get in the habit of printing out and circulating. Donna and Kathrina to consider shorter ‘speed update’ articles from more contributors, as well as national updates, combined in the same publication.

  1. SLA with EN (Donna Radley)

Discussion on BARS. Offer of training from BARS office. Some felt that frustrations over presentation and report formats needed to be sorted out first. Durham BAP unhappy about publishing new plans/targets/actions on BARS until these issues resolved.

Discussion on influencing LSPs. Some progress in all areas, but many gaps. Katrina wishes to follow this up in future discussions.

3. National Conference (Kathrina Mannion)– reminder – the three days immediately after the regional conference (21,22,23 March)

  1. Update from Regional Officer (Nick Brodin)
  1. Communications Plan. Draft circulated by email. All – comments by Easter please.
  2. Regional Conference on20th March. Nick to resend documents. All to circulate invitation to all contacts/email groups
  3. National reviews on targets, new species and habitats and recording all delayed and not yet published. Due very soon!
  4. Issues of data sharing raised. Frustration about lack of co-ordination with national lead partners – no communication. This is something Donna and Katrina are working on – session at National Conference. Some national partners have regional local data – but it is not shared with the region! Particular issue with Great Crested Newt records – Donna to investigate at EN.
  1. Closer working meeting

Meeting for LBAP officers and steering group chairs

Andy – to invite Terry Coult

Steve – to attend with Elaine Jaggs

Discussion on co-ordination of a project to support better greenspace management to be included.

  1. Partner Updates

Northumberland: Elaine Jaggs appointed as NBAP co-ordinator – starts 3rd April 2006, based at NWT

N. Tyneside: EA have used flood defence money to make improvements at Long Benton – benefiting water voles amongst others. Possibly more money next year.

N. National Park: Job cuts not directly affected Biodiversity staff, but budget for biodiversity has been cut. Need to secure funding from elsewhere – e.g SITA funds to support work at Simonside Hills SSSI, where HLS and WGS not applicable.

On the 23rd March there is a public meeting on te work done on Hadrians Wall. Likely to be 7 p.m. Greenhead Village Hall. (See Gill for details)

Newcastle: EA enhancement money used to improve biodiversity on a number of lakes in city.

Tees Valley: Work ongoing to train up local authority ground staff. Talks given and wildlife law seminar taken place for staff in Redcar and Cleveland.

Durham: BAP being updated – new list of species and habitats to be published end of March.

Regionally: Regional Grazing Co-ordinator appointed. Interview on April 6th. To be based with Great North Forest. Likely to have moved to the Greenhouse, Anfield Plain.

  1. AOB
  1. Water Vole Strategy Officer being funded for 9 months by EA, hosted by North Pennines AONB.
  2. DWT, EA and NWT looking at Saltmarsh re-creation projects across the region
  3. NWT successfully tendered for grassland review in N. England. This means updating the inventories from late 1980s – before the end of May.
  4. Question. With the merging of police forces – what will happen with wildlife liaison officers?
  5. INCA Recorder training – still in the process of being organised for some time after Easter.