How will Merseyside BioBank use my records?

Once a record is 'in' we will use it in a variety of different ways. Broadly speaking we will make your records available to advise and information decision taking and conservation. As a LERC our highest impact is with local decision taking, forward planning and strategy. However, either directly or via other routes we will ensure that your record will have a far greater reach than us and the Liverpool City Region. General uses can be grouped loosely based on the general end user;

• Planning - Generally speaking by the local planning authorities and their advisors. The data we hold forms the biodiversity evidence base for decision taking in the 4 districts
  • Highlighting Local Priority Species
  • ​Local Authority Local Plan/Land Allocations
  • Development Control/Planning Application
  • Forward Planning
  • Strategic Development/Review
  • Local Wildlife Sites Designation/Review
  • Ecological Network
  • Green Infrastructure Planning
• Commercial use - Typically developers/ecological consultancies when designing new developments or infrastructure and want to 'build in' biodiversity or want to know what constraints might exist around a proposal
  • ​House improvement
  • Housing estate construction
  • Industrial site
  • Rail works
  • Utilities
  • Highways
  • Other re-development
• Research - Such as at the request of universities, university students or other research bodies
  • ​We do get research requests and many students volunteer with us. However, the majority of research use is via the datasets we share on the NBN Atlas and GBIF.
• Conservation - Such as at the request of conservation organisations (charities/NGO's)
  • ​Nature Reserve Management/Monitoring
  • Landscape Scale Conservation ('Bee Lines')
• Public - Information is available at public requests (interest/transparency)
  • ​Individual public information requests about a site or species
  • Local naturalist requests wanting to target their recording effort or know what has been found (what hasn't been reported!)
  • Community groups concerned about the impact of development.
• Statuatory Agencies
  • Environment Agency permitting functions and waterways work
  • Joint Nature Conservation Committee species and habitat monitoring and designation