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

To ask His Majesty's Government how many sites of special scientific interest in England have up-to-date condition assessments.

On 1 April 2023 Natural England changed from a unit (or area)-based assessment and corresponding reporting process to one based on the features within each site, called Whole Feature Assessment. A feature is a habitat, species or geological characteristic for which the site is important.

More information is available here TIN216 Edition 2 Environment Act Interim Target for protected sites - TIN216 and a copy is attached.

As of March 2025, the proportion of SSSI features that had an up-to-date condition assessment in England is 31.6%

The breakdown of the number of assessments in England in each of those years was as follows:

2021- 939 assessments

2022- 781 assessments

2023- 591 assessments

2024- 921 assessments

The number of assessments in a year refers to either an assessment of a unit (pre-2023), or a feature (from 2023) on a site and not to a whole site. More than one unit or feature may be assessed on a site in a year, and the same site may have been visited in more than 1 year to monitor different units or features.