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Merestone EVERY DESIGNATION · ONE MAP

COUNTRY

United Kingdom

240 layers, 52 free

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Presets

One tap switches on a set built for a real question.

Essentials

What is protected here: the statutory designations, across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, plus ancient woodland. This is what the map opens with, and what Default puts back. It is a starting point, not a limit: every other layer is one tap away in the list below.

23 layers

Desk study

The statutory designations an ecologist checks first: SSSI, SAC, SPA, Ramsar, National and Local Nature Reserves across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, plus ancient woodland and priority habitat. This is the opening move of a Preliminary Ecological Appraisal, what is protected on or near the site. Statutory sites are commonly scoped to 10 km and habitat inventories to 2 km, guidance sets no fixed distances, so set the radius to suit the project.

26 layers

Woodland

Everything wooded: the Ancient Woodland Inventory and its revision, deciduous woodland, traditional orchards, wood pasture and parkland, and the National Forest Inventory. Ancient woodland is irreplaceable habitat under the NPPF, so its boundary, and whether the revised inventory moved it, is usually the first thing a client needs to know.

7 layers

Botanical

Built for a botanical survey or NVC walkover: every priority grassland, heathland and the Botanical Value Map, with SSSI and ancient woodland for context. These are the habitats where the species list is the point: unimproved calcareous and acid grassland, lowland meadows, upland hay meadows, purple moor grass and rush pasture, and the heaths. Turn it on before a site visit to see which compartments deserve the most time on the ground.

40 layers

Wetland

Bog, fen, reedbed, marsh and open water. Blanket and raised bog, lowland fens, reedbeds, upland flushes, priority ponds and lakes, coastal and floodplain grazing marsh, and chalk rivers: with Ramsar sites and nutrient neutrality catchments, because on a wetland site the hydrology and the nutrient budget are usually the same conversation.

23 layers

Coastal

The intertidal and soft-cliff suite: saltmarsh, sand dunes, vegetated shingle, maritime cliff and slope, mudflats and saline lagoons: plus Heritage Coast, Marine Conservation Zones, Scottish MPAs, and the SPA and Ramsar designations that nearly always sit over an estuary. The Coast Path is included because access and designation overlap constantly on this kind of site.

19 layers

Upland

Moorland and the high ground: blanket bog, upland heath, mountain heaths and willow scrub, upland calcareous grassland, hay meadows and flushes, with the Moorland Change Map and the non-priority grass moorland and fragmented heath layers so you can see what has been lost as well as what remains. National Parks and CRoW access land are on because most upland work happens inside one or both.

17 layers

Species

Protected species and licensing context: great crested newt licence survey returns and eDNA pond results, priority ponds, the Botanical Value Map, SSSI units with their condition assessments, and SSSI Impact Risk Zones: the layer that tells you whether Natural England must be consulted on a planning application. Note that these are records of where people have looked, not a map of where the species are: an empty area may only mean nobody has surveyed it.

8 layers

Heritage

The Historic England registers: scheduled monuments, listed buildings, registered parks and gardens, registered battlefields, World Heritage Sites and protected wreck sites. Wood pasture, parkland and traditional orchards are included because they are as often a heritage asset as an ecological one, and a designed landscape usually explains both.

32 layers

Planning

The constraints that shape a red line: SSSI Impact Risk Zones, Green Belt, the Flood Map for Planning zones and storage areas with present-day rivers-and-sea risk, Agricultural Land Classification (both the provisional national map and the more reliable post-1988 surveys), nutrient neutrality catchments, National Parks, National Landscapes and Local Nature Recovery Strategy areas. Useful for a constraints plan or an early feasibility check before any ecology is commissioned.

19 layers

Access

Where the public has a right to be: CRoW open access land, Section 15 dedicated land, registered common land, National Trails, the King Charles III England Coast Path, country parks, doorstep greens and millennium greens. Access constrains survey logistics and mitigation design as much as any designation does.

8 layers

Net gain

Habitat and connectivity for biodiversity net gain and offsetting work: the National Habitat Network, the full Priority Habitat Inventory, Local Nature Recovery Strategy areas, registered gain sites, ancient woodland, open mosaic habitat on previously developed land, agricultural land classification and live Environmental Stewardship agreements. The question this set answers is where a gain would actually connect to something.

9 layers

Forestry

The checks behind a felling licence or a woodland creation application: ancient woodland and its revision, the National Forest Inventory, the live felling licence register, EWCO low-sensitivity land, the 1891–1914 historic woodland maps, wood pasture, deciduous priority habitat, and the statutory designations that constrain felling and planting: SSSI, SAC, SPA and Ramsar.

22 layers

Flood

Flood zones, surface water, defences and what has flooded before.

24 layers

Farm & land

Land grade, soils, nitrate rules and agreement land. England and Wales; Scotland has land capability and AECS that are not published as open services, and Northern Ireland has neither.

14 layers

Contaminated land

Old landfills, regulated waste sites and the water beneath them. England only, and no geology, superficial deposits or radon: those are not published as open national services for Great Britain, so a ground report still has to be commissioned.

9 layers

Renewables screening

The constraints a wind or solar scheme is screened against in Scotland and northern England: carbon-rich soils and deep peat, wild land, National Scenic Areas, the statutory designations and ancient woodland. A screening map, not a decision: NPF4 gives several of these explicit weight, and the rest is casework.

10 layers

Visiting

Walks, parks and places worth the trip: the map for a day out.

27 layers

Landscape character

What the landscape is, before what is protected: character areas, LANDMAP, wild land and the scenic designations.

15 layers

Layer by layer

Designations · 85

STATUTORY

NATURE RECOVERY

SCOTLAND

WALES

HISTORIC

NON-STATUTORY

TREE PRESERVATION

PLANNING

MARINE

NORTHERN IRELAND

Habitats · 79

WOODLAND

HABITAT MAPPING

WETLAND

GRASSLAND

HEATHLAND

COASTAL

INLAND ROCK

OTHER

ALL HABITATS

NORTHERN IRELAND

Species · 4

BIRDS

AMPHIBIANS

PLANTS

Access · 14

PATHS & TRAILS

NATIONAL TRUST

OPEN ACCESS

GREEN SPACE

Landscape · 56

SCOTLAND

PEAT

FLOOD RISK

WALES

WATER

LANDMAP

GEOLOGY & SOILS

AIR QUALITY

INDUSTRY & WASTE

LANDSCAPE CLASSIFICATIONS

Land-Based Schemes · 7

FORESTRY

AGRI-ENVIRONMENT

BIODIVERSITY NET GAIN

Publishers

Every layer names its publisher and licence. These are the agencies behind this country.

PublishersThe layersLicence
Natural England77OGL v3.0 · OGL v3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2024 · biodiversity gain sites register, OGL v3.0
Natural Resources Wales50OGL v3.0
Environment Agency20OGL v3.0
DAERA / NIEA13OGL v3.0
NatureScot12OGL v3.0
MHCLG / planning.data.gov.uk9OGL v3.0
Cadw8Welsh Government, OGL v3.0
SEPA 20257OGL v3.0
Historic Environment Scotland6OGL v3.0
Historic England6OGL
Historic Environment Division6DfC NI, OGL v3.0
Scottish Government4OGL v3.0
Scottish Forestry4OGL v3.0
Forestry Commission3OGL v3.0
Rural Payments Agency / Natural England2OGL v3.0
Forestry Commission / Forest Research2OGL v3.0
Marine Management Organisation2OGL v3.0
National Trust2CC BY 4.0
Historic England 20261OGL v3.0 · contains OS data © Crown copyright
Coal Authority1OGL v3.0
Defra1OGL v3.0
Association of Drainage Authorities1via the Environment Agency, OGL v3.0
Occurrence records via GBIF.org1each record under its own CC0 or CC-BY licence; see the record for its dataset
DAERA Marine and Fisheries Division1OGL v3.0
Welsh Government1OGL v3.0

Known gaps, stated plainly

What is not here, and why. These lines come from the app and are removed the day a layer ships.

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