Green Action Trust Pilot Project – East Ayrshire Nature Network Delivery Group

As part of the Nature Network Pilot Project, Green Action Trust (GAT) worked with East Ayrshire Council to support the development of a Nature Network Delivery Group with key stakeholders in East Ayrshire. This involved establishing the group’s purpose, contacting relevant organisations, and preparing for the initial meeting. With no dedicated biodiversity resource at East Ayrshire Council, the work aimed to help ensure that initial mapping leads to practical, on-the-ground delivery.

Delivery Principles-

Theme 1: Governance and decision making

Theme 2: Participation, engagement, and communication

Theme 3: Knowledge and skills

Green Action Trust supported East Ayrshire Council to establish the foundations for a Nature Network Delivery Group. This included an initial meeting with East Ayrshire Council and NatureScot to discuss the task and develop a contact list of potential stakeholders, such as Ayrshire Climate Hub, RSPB and NFUS. A follow-up meeting was held to clarify the purpose of the group, with East Ayrshire Council confirming that it would act as secretariat. The potential for the group to become a Biodiversity Partnership was discussed, while recognising that the initial focus would be on establishing a Nature Network Delivery Group. 

Green Action Trust contacted potential members by email, setting out the context and purpose of the group and inviting queries by Teams, phone or email. Before the initial meeting, an information pack was provided to all potential members which included detail on East Ayrshire’s current progress on NN implementation. Green Action Trust then facilitated the initial meeting of the Delivery Group. This meeting was focused around providing members with further information on Nature Networks and East Ayrshire’s progress, with plenty of time for group discussion.  

Development of the Nature Network Delivery Group will provide East Ayrshire Council with biodiversity input and feedback on its mapped Nature Network corridors. The group will sense-check the Nature Network corridors East Ayrshire has already mapped and scope how these could be delivered. This may include project pipeline development and a form of oversight for monitoring and reporting. 

The mapped Nature Network corridors will need to be further refined following consultation feedback through the Local Development Plan process and confirmation of the next round of updates to the Aecom Tool. Establishing the Delivery Group provides a mechanism for reviewing this information and supporting progression from mapping toward delivery on the ground. 

Membership of the group aims to provide links to climate action and support responses to the twin biodiversity and climate crises. If a Biodiversity Partnership approach is taken in the future, the group could also support Local Biodiversity Action Planning. 

The group’s first meeting highlighted the importance of stakeholder engagement, with many of the group members offering their expertise, discussing how mapped corridors could be improved, and providing local context. This has directly informed East Ayrshire Council’s next steps and have taken these points into consideration for re-drafting mapped corridors.  

A key challenge highlighted in the pilot was the lack of a dedicated biodiversity resource within East Ayrshire Council. Green Action Trust support has helped address this by bringing together relevant stakeholders and creating a structure through which biodiversity expertise, local knowledge and delivery input can be shared. This NN delivery group will be key for ensuring NN work at East Ayrshire Council progresses beyond policies and mapping.  

Across many organisations, capacity is stretched thin, and with many other delivery groups and partnerships, finding time to be part of a new group can be challenging. To assist with this, GAT and East Ayrshire worked with group members to establish meeting frequency and group expectations. It was decided that a quarterly meeting with email updates was the best use of time.