Sites of Special Scientific Interest
(asked on 2nd June 2025) - View Source
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 were assessed in (1) 2021, (2) 2022, (3) 2023, and (4) 2024.
Answered by
Baroness Hayman of Ullock
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
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.