The Common Lands of England - A Biological survey
The Common Lands of England - A Biological Survey is an extensive research project undertaken between 1988 and 2000, bringing together biological data on the registered common lands of England.
The work was carried out by the Rural Surveys Research Unit at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, with information gathered over a twelve year period in respect of every county in England. The first collection of reports was commissioned and funded by the Nature Conservancy Council, and thereafter by English Nature. The final phase of the project, which began in 1995, was commissioned by the former Department of the Environment (now Defra).
The following project publications are available below:
- Executive summary
- Project synopsis
- The Common Lands of England: A Biological Survey - full report
(189 KB)
Some of the tables and figures in the main report are available as separate files, as follows:
- Table 7: Broad Habitat Types (5 KB)
- Tables 8 and 9: Broad Habitat Categories (14 KB)
- Selected tables from Technical Appendix 1 (48 KB)
- Figures 1-33, A1-A37: showing distributions of rights and habitats in England (1.1 MB)
- Figure A38: Top Ten Phase 1 Habitats - % Total Area of Surveyed Common Land (7 KB)
- Figure A39: Top Ten Phase 1 Habitats - % Habitat Types on Surveyed Com-mons (7 KB)
An individual county report has been produced for every region in England. The counties covered by the final phase of the project, and whose reports are available electronically as pdf files are:
- Buckinghamshire (117KB)
- Cheshire (107KB)
- Cornwall (126KB)
- Cumbria (298KB)
- Devon (145KB)
- Dorset (173KB)
- Durham (109KB)
- Essex (122KB)
- Gloucestershire (104KB)
- Greater London (107KB)
- Greater Manchester (124KB)
- Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (143KB)
- Hereford (156KB)
- Humberside(125KB)
- Kent (106KB)
- Norfolk (196KB)
- North Yorkshire (180KB)
- Oxfordshire (119KB)
- Staffordshire and the West Midlands (139KB)
- Suffolk (122KB)
- Surrey (254KB)
- Warwickshire (80KB)
- West Yorkshire (173KB)
- Wiltshire (126KB)
- Worcestershire (140KB)
County reports are also available for the areas below. These reports are available electronically by email, please contact us for copies
- Bedfordshire
- Berkshire
- Cambridgeshire
- Cleveland
- Derbyshire
- East Sussex
- Hertford
- Lancashire
- Leicestershire
- Lincolnshire
- Merseyside
- Northamptonshire
- Northumberland
- Nottinghamshire
- Shropshire
- Somerset
- Tyne and Wear
- West Sussex
Also available for each county, although not electronically, are specific site reports on individual common land units.
For any report not listed here, please contact us.
Page last modified: 18 January 2008
Page published: 5 February 2003