Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to meet the target of designating 50 new sites of special scientific interest each year.

Designation of new Sites of Special Scientific interest (SSSIs) is Natural England’s duty. Natural England has a rolling programme to keep under review places that may merit and benefit designation as SSSIs.

Natural England is adapting its protected sites work programme, focusing on prioritising actions to deliver the Environment Act interim target for SSSIs and aligning its work with the objectives of the Environmental Improvement Plan 2025.

Natural England’s Designations Strategy in 2012 set an expectation “that there will be c.50 cases per year with approx. 10% being major notifications and the bulk being small sites or amendments.”

The expectation expressed in 2012 was not adopted as a target by Natural England or by the Government.