England Woodland Creation Low Sensitivity Map v3.0

<p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>These maps will help to indicate to landowners whether there is likely to be potential to establish new woodland on their land, and where there may be sensitivities that would preclude woodland creation.</span><br /></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>The maps do not indicate that, where there is a low sensitivity to new woodland being created, that planting will be agreed by the Forestry Commission, the regulator for woodland and forestry projects in England. However, the low sensitivity areas have fewest identified constraints to address, and it should be easier to agree creating new woodland here than in other areas. </span></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>Likewise, creation of new woodland, particularly of native woodland, may be appropriate outside ‘low sensitivity’ areas, but the appropriateness of proposals in these areas will again be determined by the Forestry Commission, including through responding to the views of Natural England, Environment Agency, Historic England, the Local Authority and other stakeholders, where relevant.</span></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>The Sensitivity Maps exclude all land that is unsuitable for planting, including urban areas, existing (and assumed) woodland and habitats that are considered too wet, too rocky, and too salty to support the growth of trees. This is achieved through restricting the Sensitivity Maps to the following land covers, based on the most recent update of Landcover Map:</span></p><p></p><ul><li><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent:-18pt;'>Acid grassland</span></li><li><span style='text-indent:-18pt; font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>Arable and horticulture</span></li><li><span style='text-indent:-18pt; font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>Calcareous grassland</span></li><li><span style='text-indent:-18pt; font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>Heather</span></li><li><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent:-18pt;'>Heather grassland</span></li><li><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif; text-indent:-18pt;'>Improved grassland</span></li><li><span style='text-indent:-18pt; font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>Neutral grassland</span></li></ul><p></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'><br /></span></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>The spatial datasets and individual layers of those datasets that define land as unsuitable and low, medium, or high sensitivity for woodland creation in the Full Sensitivity Map version 3.0, the Low Sensitivity Map and their </span><span style='font-size:11pt; font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>variants </span><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>are set out in the document here:</span></p><p><span style='font-size:11.5pt; font-family:&quot;Verdana&quot;,sans-serif;'><a href='https://www.gov.uk/guidance/a-guide-to-forestry-commissions-sensitivity-maps-for-woodland-creation' rel='nofollow ugc'>www.gov.uk/guidance/a-guide-to-forestry-commissions-sensitivity-maps-for-woodland-creation</a></span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>Attributes:</span></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>‘Sensitivity’ = the sensitivity to woodland creation level the land has been assigned.</span></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>‘Area (Hectares)’ = the area in hectares of the polygon.</span></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'> </span></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>Lineage:</span></p><p><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>This is version 3.0 of these layers, having gone </span><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'>through</span><span style='font-family:Verdana, sans-serif;'> several iterations where new data inputs were added and changes made to how these were treated as sensitivities for woodland creation. These are the first versions of the layers to be published as Open Data.</span></p>