Dunstable Habitat Bank

County: Bedfordshire
Local planning authority (LPA): Central Bedfordshire Council
National Character Area (NCA): Chilterns
Biodiversity gain sites register number: BGS-041225001

Birds-eye render of Dunstable Habitat Bank before restoration

Very high distinctiveness habitats

Lowland meadows

High distinctiveness habitats

Species-rich native hedgerow with trees
Traditional orchards

Medium distinctiveness habitats

Mixed scrub

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Habitat Bank overview

Less than ten miles from Luton, we’re transforming almost fifty-five acres of land into a biodiverse space to connect habitats surrounding the site and across the wider landscape – including parcels of priority deciduous and ancient woodland.

Dunstable Habitat Bank has been strategically placed amongst key areas for biodiversity so we can have a large-scale impact, creating habitats carefully designed to help a broad range of wildlife.

BNG delivery

An essential part of our Habitat Bank delivery process is the initial assessment of the land. This ensures that our team are maximising potential biodiversity uplift from the outset. We look at each site’s natural features and histories – taking into account soil type and condition, long-term management history, native wildlife, hydrology, existing vegetation, geology, and connectivity across wider landscapes.

For each of our Habitat Banks, we take a baseline using the statutory biodiversity metric – ensuring that we can accurately measure the benefits brought by our nature restoration works over our thirty-year management period.

Neighbouring LPAs
North Hertfordshire District Council
Huntingdonshire District Council
Buckinghamshire Council
Luton Borough Council
South Cambridgeshire District Council
Dacorum Borough Council
Milton Keynes City Council
St Albans City and District Council
Bedford Borough Council

Neighbouring NCAs
Northern Thames Basin
Thames Basin Heaths
South Suffolk and North Essex Clayland
Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands
Thames Valley
Upper Thames Clay Vales
Berkshire and Marlborough Downs
East Anglian Chalk

Our vision

Dunstable Habitat Bank sits within the Natural England Chalks & Chilterns Priority Focus Area and the Chilterns National Landscape. It’s also very close to the Kensworth Chalk Pit Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI).

Our ecologists are working in close collaboration with the landowners to create and enhance meadows, orchards, and scrub. We’ve incorporated the landowners’ herd of Dutch spotted sheep into our management plan, and they’ll gently graze the meadows to encourage greater diversity in wildflowers.

We’re creating habitats that will support a variety of important species native to the area, including hazel dormouse, yellow wagtail, common lizard, and slow worm. Over time, we hope to see an increasing number of these species as they make their home at Dunstable Habitat Bank.

Two public footpaths cross the Habitat Bank, so we’re pleased that people from the local community will also get to enjoy the space as biodiversity increases in the coming decades.