An Essex estate has launched a 200-acre nature-recovery project after seeing how a smaller area of land recovered when it was left untouched for a decade. The project at Braxted Park Estate covers about 70 hectares across the administrative areas of Colchester City Council, Braintree District Council and Maldon District Council. About 30 years ago, the Clark family decided to set aside their entire farm. After ten years in the Countryside Stewardship scheme, farming resumed in 2014. But the family chose to leave about 50 acres unfarmed. Duncan Clark DL, owner of Braxted Park Estate and creator of the Braxted Park Habitat Bank, said seeing the natural recovery across those 50 acres persuaded him to expand the work over a much larger area. The larger 200-acre project is an off-site Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) habitat bank.
“The opportunity to increase the acreage of nature recovery to 200 acres of BNG was one Duncan could not turn away from,” according to the estate’s official publication detailing the project history. It builds on a land management decision made decades ago. Over the next decade, scrub grew back and self-seeded oak trees matured. The area then attracted rare birds, including turtle doves and nightingales.
The habitat creation and improvement scheme operates under a Section 106 legal agreement. This agreement commits the estate to a 30-year plan for managing and monitoring the habitat. The project is in the Northern Thames Basin National Character Area and is designed to support the regional Local Nature Recovery Strategy. This long-term arrangement gives local planning authorities, developers and ecological consultants legal and practical certainty that the land will be monitored and protected over time. Property consultancy Bidwells is managing the strategy and the commercial sale of the biodiversity units created by the project. James Young, Rural Agency and Natural Capital Sales Manager at Bidwells, is responsible for matching developers’ needs with the units available from the estate. He also helps ensure that sales meet legal trading rules and local planning conditions. Further oversight and management support comes from Bidwells’ natural capital team. This includes Head of Rural Roland Bull, Natural Capital Partner Lisa Bulmer, and Environmental Consultant Maisie Jimson-Woods.