§ Mr. Maclennanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment how many designations have been made by the Nature Conservancy Council since 1973 to establish or extend sites of special scientific interest; whether any requests for designation have been declined or modified and in which areas these were located; and what percentage of the total present site of special scientific interest acreage such refusals and modifications constitute.
§ Mrs. RumboldI am advised by the Nature Conservancy Council that the information is not readily available in this form and could be provided only at disproportionate cost.
To date the NCC has notified 2,356 sites in Great Britain under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981; of these, 1,691 were previously notified under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949.
A further 2,445 were notified under the 1949 Act; of these, 53 have been denotified and the remainder await re-notification under the 1981 Act.
The 1981 Act requires the NCC to consider representations or objections from owners and occupiers of sites not previously notified under the 1949 Act. In a few cases, the boundaries of proposed sites have been modified as a result. Details of such cases are not available, but the NCC considers that the percentage of land so affected is very small.
§ Mr. Maclennanasked the Secretary of State for the Environment what percentage of total hill and upland acreages in Scotland are currently designated as sites of special scientific interest; and on what proportion of this acreage the owner or occupier may not undertake schemes of drainage, re-seeding or the planting of trees.
§ Mrs. RumboldThis information is not available. Notification of a site of special scientific interest does not itself prevent an owner or occupier from undertaking activities of the kind described. However, if the activities are specified as potentially damaging operations in the notification, they may not be carried out unless the Nature Conservancy Council has been notified in writing and one of the conditions in section 28(6) of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 has been fulfilled.