Local nature reserves: setting up and management

Publication Year

2025

Document Status

Current

Abstract

Provides guidance on how local nature reserves (LNRs) can be selected, declared and managed by local authorities. Covers: access to LNRs, choosing a site, how to declare a LNR, managing a LNR, byelaws, amending a LNR boundary and revoking a LNR.

Document History

Last updated: 18 November 2025 - Updated to improve detail and clarity. Includes more information about what local nature reserves (LNRs) are and why they are important. Provides more detail about how to declare a reserve, including what to do before and after the declaration, and what information to send to Natural England. Added new section on how to change a LNR's boundary and updated the section on how to revoke a declaration. Sourced from: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/create-and-manage-local-nature-reserves and converted to pdf. Whilst we endeavour to capture all updates it is subject to receiving alerts from the publisher and there may be formatting or punctuation changes applied to the html version that do not affect the text. Document type: guidance. First published: 2 October 2014. Published in conjunction with: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA).

Publisher Information