Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS)

What is a

Local Nature
Recovery Strategy?

Local Nature Recovery Strategies are new, area-focused roadmaps for wildlife restoration. They map where and how action can be taken to help nature, helping farmers, communities, landowners, businesses and organisations to work together to create spaces for nature to thrive. In total, 48 LNRS will be created across England.

In October 2025, Norfolk and Suffolk became the 10th and 11th areas to publish their LNRSs. Recognising that nature does not adhere to man-made borders, the two counties worked in partnership to develop their Local Nature Recovery Strategies.

LNRSs are made up of five parts:

Part A provides a description of the current state of nature in Norfolk and Suffolk
Part B sets out of the opportunities to restore and enhance habitats
Part C defines the priority species, habitats and habitat assemblages for the counties and outlines the practical actions to support their recovery
Part D includes the locations that could have the greatest impact for nature recovery
The Local Habitat Map. Covering 40% of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Local Habitat Map shows where existing nature-rich areas are and the places and actions where we can create and connect habitats.

Explore Norfolk's LNRS Explore Suffolk's LNRS

How we worked together to create Local Nature Recovery Strategies for Norfolk and Suffolk

Oversight

Supporting Authorities provided oversight for each strategy. These include 12 district and borough councils, the Broads Authority and Natural England.

The Partnership LNRS Steering Group represents a broad membership of key stakeholder organisations, and provided guidance and advise on strategy development.

Evidence & Expertise

The Steering Group operated in conjunction with six specialist Themed Working Groups and wider sectors of society to provide a wide range of experience and representation.

Delivery

The Nature Recovery Partnership Manager co-ordinated LNRS delivery teams from each County Council who were responsible for delivering a wide-ranging programme of face-to-face and online engagement, analysing data to inform the strategy and drafting the strategy document.

Public consultations

The public consultations for the Norfolk and Suffolk Local Nature Recovery Strategies ran for eight weeks from April to June 2025. The consultations gathered feedback on both the draft strategy and the Local Habitat Map. We designed the process to ensure we received a broad and inclusive range of views.

In Norfolk we received over 650 responses and in Suffolk we received over 500 responses. The views were from residents, stakeholders, and community groups.

You can read a full breakdown of the responses we received in our consultation reports. The reports also outlines the changes we made to Norfolk and Suffolk's LNRSs based on the feedback.

Read Norfolk's consultation reportRead Suffolk's consultation report