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A guide to Forestry Commissions Sensitivity Maps for Woodland Creation

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The Forestry Commission has developed a series of sensitivity maps, based on nationally available and consistent datasets, to indicate where there are likely to be fewer sensitivities to woodland creation.

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.

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.

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.

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 (2020):

• acid grassland
• arable and horticulture
• calcareous grassland
• heather
• heather grassland
• improved grassland
• neutral grassland

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 are set out at Annex A. The national Full Sensitivity Map v3.0 and the associated Low Sensitivity Map are presented at Annex B.

The lineage of data inputs used to create the Full Sensitivity Map v3.0 and all variants are presented in Annex C. Data inputs, footnotes and acknowledgements are presented in Annex D. Overview maps for England, showing each variant, are presented in Annex E.

Variants of the Low and Full Sensitivity Maps

Three variants of the Full Sensitivity Map v3.0 and associated Low Sensitivity Map v3.0 have also been developed, which assign low sensitivity status to either or both of two datasets that are treated as medium sensitivity in the Full Sensitivity Map at Annex B, as set out below:

England Woodland Creation Low Sensitivity Map v3.0 - variant 1

• agricultural land Class 3a: low sensitivity
• protected landscapes (National Parks, the Broads and AONBs): low sensitivity

England Woodland Creation Low Sensitivity Map v3.0 - variant 2

• agricultural land Class 3a: medium sensitivity
• protected landscapes (National Parks, the Broads and AONBs): low sensitivity

England Woodland Creation Low Sensitivity Map v3.0 - variant 3

• agricultural land Class 3a: low Sensitivity
• protected landscapes (National Parks, the Broads and AONBs): medium sensitivity

The variants of the Full and Low Sensitivity Maps have been developed because, in the case of agricultural land quality, the decision to plant on the best and most versatile land is largely an economic decision made by the landowner; variants 1 and 3 reveal underlying sensitivities of ALC3a land. For Protected Landscapes where woodland creation may be desirable, particularly of native woodland, variants 1 and 2 reveal sensitivities to woodland creation other than Protected Landscape status.

Relationship with the Low-Risk Map for woodland creation

The Low Sensitivity Map v3.0 is a development of the Low-Risk Map for woodland creation, as defined in the Environmental Impact (Forestry) Regulations (2017), with the main differences set out below:

• all areas of peat included in Natural Englands England peat map are excluded from the Low Sensitivity Map (and its variants), with deep peat classified as high sensitivity and shallow peat and other soils with peaty pockets classified as medium sensitivity
• areas of land included in the Wader Zonal Maps for curlew and golden plover as strata 2 to 5 are excluded from the Low Sensitivity Map (and its variants), with strata 4 and 5 treated as high sensitivity and strata 2 and 3 as medium sensitivity
• amended buffers are, in some cases, applied to Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), Special Protection Areas (SPAs), Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) and RAMSAR sites. Details of the buffer that applies to each are set out in Annex A

The Low-Risk Map for woodland creation will continue to be used for meeting the requirements of the 2017 EIA (Forestry) regulations in terms of determining where notification may apply, rather than EIA screening; however, the Full and Low Sensitivity Maps represent a more current view of sensitivities to woodland creation.

National breakdown of land sensitivity for woodland creation

National statistics of land sensitivity for the Full and Low Sensitivity Maps are given in Table 1 below, including for the three variants.

Table 1. National breakdown of land sensitivity for the England Woodland Creation Full Sensitivity Map v3.0, the Low Sensitivity Map v3.0 (restricted to blocks more than 2 hectares in area) derived from it, and the three variants.

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