East of England Regional Local Environmental Records Centres and Environmental Consultants Conference 2011
Following the success of the 2010 conference, representatives from the East of England Local Environmental Records Centres (LERCs) and the environmental consultancies who use their services gathered at The Guildhall in Cambridge on the 24th January 2011 to hear about recent service improvements made by the LERCs and to discuss ‘where do we go from here?’
The conference was organised by Norfolk Biodiversity Information Service (NBIS) and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Environmental Records Centre (CPERC) with financial support from the NBN Data Provider Training Fund. It was organised as part of a Defra-funded regional pilot project to improve and standardise LERCs’ responses to data enquiries from consultants. As a result of this project, a new ‘Standard Data Enquiry Service’ will be provided by all LERCs in the East of England from the end of March. Conference delegates were given a preview of the new Standard Data Enquiry Service prior to its official launch next month.
Lorna Shaw from Essex Wildlife Trust gave an update on recent progress towards establishing a fully functioning LERC in Essex. The first phase of the project has been successfully completed and three Local Authorities have signed agreements to fund the development of the records centre to fulfil their biodiversity data requirements.
Sally Hayns, CEO of IEEM, gave an excellent presentation on the challenges facing LERCs with regard to providing and exchanging data with consultants, and discussed how these challenges might be overcome.
Dr Graham Hopkins from The Ecology Consultancy brought the morning’s presentations to a close with an informative talk about the importance of LERC data searches in influencing site enhancement during the development process.
The discussion workshop at the 2010 conference focussed on consultants’ data requirements, and the outcomes were instrumental in shaping the new Standard Data Enquiry Service. This year, the aims of the discussions were to identify how LERCs and consultants could work together more effectively and how data flow between them could be improved. Topics included data exchange formats, online data provision, habitat data and new ways for LERCs to engage with the consultant community. Many useful suggestions were made, giving the region’s LERCs plenty to work on over the next 12 months.
Feedback received from the event was overwhelmingly positive. Consultants commented that it was good to meet the ‘people behind the e-mails’ and said that the day gave them a valuable insight into the work of LERCs. From the LERCs’ point of view, it was helpful to gain a greater understanding of the challenges facing consultants regarding environmental data and to discuss how these might be tackled.
Everyone who commented said that they found the day useful and requested that a similar event be run next year.