Written by Tim Corner, Manager – Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre (BRERC)
Bristol Regional Environmental Records Centre (BRERC) has been providing all of its species records to the National Biodiversity Network Gateway since 2007. Via the NBN Gateway all BRERC non-sensitive records have been made available to the public at 1 km resolution whilst our partners (local authorities, Natural England, Environment Agency), all Local Environmental Records Centres (LERCs) and certain other appropriate organisations have access at the full resolution. All sensitive data is available only to certain appropriate staff (such as protected species officers) within those organisations.
As the first LERC to make all of our electronic species data available in this way there had been much concern as to whether this would have a detrimental impact on our charged enquiry service. This service then accounted for approximately 10% of our income to cover our core costs. The concern centred on the premise that commercial consultancies would by-pass our service in favour of the apparent free service proved by the NBN Gateway.
Although use for commercial purpose, such as for planning applications, is constrained by the terms & conditions of the NBN Gateway (it is allowed only with the data providers expressed permission) it is thought many consultants do use the NBN Gateway in contravention of the terms and conditions. Certainly analysis of the email addresses of those downloading data seems to support this view.
The likelihood is that many planning applications are referencing data at either a vague (1km) resolution, insufficient to make accurate determinations, or indeed ignoring data not otherwise available to them via the NBN Gateway yet available directly from the LERCs.
This is still a concern and one grounded in experience and analysis of enquiries and data downloading.
However, since 2007 the income BRERC secures from its enquiry service has actually grown to over 40% of our core income. At no stage have we felt that our income was being stifled by making it available via the NBN Gateway at 1km resolution. We have no recorded incident of any sensitive data being made available inappropriately or without our consent.
We also do not think that making the data available on the NBN Gateway has hindered the way in which we make it available in other media and forms including the BRERC Inter-active Mapping accessed via our website. We view it as complementary and a demonstrated means to reach many millions of users.
DEFRA, Natural England and Environment Agency have used the accessibility of our data to support their continued finance for our services and to support the ethos of LERCs and the National Biodiversity Network of which LERCs are an integral part.
Since first uploading our data some aspects have become second nature. For example many organisations, ours included, regularly look up the national distribution of species and in doing so are viewing our data among the other records from across the country. Without that data the UK maps would look very different.
Following a recent meeting with John Sawyer (Chief Executive of the NBN Trust) and further discussions with the NBN Gateway Team, BRERC chose to make all non-sensitive species data older than 15 years old available to all at full resolution via the NBN Gateway.
In order to safeguard our income stream, data younger than 15 years old remains freely available only at the 1km resolution. The data is available at full resolution via our charged enquiry service, discounted for non-commercial use.
We will monitor potential impacts to our business and intend to work closely with the National Biodiversity Network to examine how we can become sustainably financed and improve the delivery of data services to enable us to make more of our data freely available.
We wish to thank John Sawyer, Rachel Stroud and the rest of their team for their continued assistance and progressive approach whilst listening to the views expressed and responding sympathetically and objectively.
I would urge all other LERCs and other data custodians to consider making their data available in a similar way.