Ellesmere Port Habitat Bank

County: Cheshire
Local planning authority (LPA): Cheshire West and Chester Council
National Character Area (NCA): Mersey Valley

Biodiversity Units available:

Very high distinctiveness habitats

Lowland meadows

High distinctiveness habitats

Traditional orchard
Ponds (priority habitat)
Floodplain wetland mosaic and CFGM

Medium distinctiveness habitats

Ditches
Mixed scrub
Willow scrub

Buy Biodiversity Units

Habitat Bank overview

Less than 30 miles from Liverpool, our Ellesmere Port Habitat Bank covers around 30 hectares of land where our work is helping to connect habitats between Bridge Trafford and Mickle Trafford.

In collaboration with the landowner, we’ll be restoring the landscape and using sustainable livestock grazing to help local ecosystems thrive.

BNG delivery

At every Habitat Bank, we always look at the land to determine what can be achieved from the very start. Our biodiversity experts assess the soil, wildlife, vegetation, geology, hydrology, management history, and connectivity across the local landscape.

We take a baseline for each Habitat Bank using the statutory biodiversity metric. We carefully select the best possible habitats for us to establish so we can deliver and demonstrate measurable biodiversity gains over time.

Biodiversity Units from this Habitat Bank are ready to purchase now, subject to availability. Provided alongside expert planning support, these Biodiversity Units offer an effective local off-site BNG solution for the Cheshire West and Chester LPA and the Mersey Valley NCA.

Coverage

Adjacent LPAs	Adjacent NCAs
Wirral Council	Wirral
Shropshire Council	Merseyside Conurbation
Liverpool City Council	Manchester Conurbation
Cheshire East Council	Lancashire Coal Measures
Halton Borough Council	Shropshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire Plain
Warrington Borough Council

Our vision

At our Ellesmere Port Habitat Bank, we’re transforming the previous pasture and arable fields into a rich mix of habitats including native mixed scrub, wildflower grassland, and ponds.

Each habitat aims to encourage important flora and fauna to flourish – from the native woodlands designed to support bats, newts, and badgers, to the fruit tree orchards that we hope will attract pollinating insects, to the ponds that will become home to a variety of aquatic vegetation and amphibians.

Our ecologists plan for this site’s floodplain marshland is to support bird species of special conservation status as the local area is noted for breeding and wintering birds.

We are also enhancing the grassland to become far more species-rich while extending the existing woodland to become a suitable haven for a diverse range of wildlife. We are especially keen to attract protected bird and invertebrate species through our site’s new habitats.