Sites of Special Scientific Interest
(asked on 28th January 2020) - View Source
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what the cost to the public purse was of Natural England’s programme of monitoring of SSSIs in each calendar year since 2009.
Answered by
Rebecca Pow
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
Natural England (NE) expenditure on monitoring sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) is set out in the following table.
Year | Expenditure |
2010/11 | £1,570,755 |
2011/12 | £1,517,691 |
2012/13 | £1,797,287 |
2013/14 | £1,420,892 |
2014/15 | £1,381,580 |
2015/16 | £900,633 |
2016/17 | £1,028,533 |
2017/18 | £700,452 |
2018/19 | £700,000 |
This includes NE staff time and the costs of specialist surveys.
This year NE is prioritising actions to address particular issues on SSSIs, especially those affecting upland SSSIs. NE continues to support and encourage partners in the work they do themselves to undertake SSSI monitoring.
NE is also developing an approach to the monitoring of SSSIs which will make better use of new technologies, such as remote sensing and greater partnership involvement. This is intended to improve efficiency of SSSI monitoring.