This note provides the London Biodiversity Partnership’s guidance
on dealing with the geographic location of Biological records.
Because of the variety of taxa, methods for recording them, and
uses for the records there is no single ideal recipe for describing
locations. However, records are more useful the smaller and more
homogeneous is the ‘site’ from which they come.
For many purposes, especially for rare or unusual occurrences
and surveys of private gardens, a full six-figure grid reference
is encouraged. This identifies the location to within the nearest
50 metres. Such precise locations can be readily associated with
larger areas (such as grid squares or ‘sites’ and ‘sub-sites’),
but the converse is not the case.
For postal surveys and other records associated with the address,
e.g. private garden surveys, the full postcode can be used
as a location that is nearly as precise as a full grid reference,
and more likely to be known. Postcodes do not cover anything other
than residential areas, and are therefore not relevant for recording
in open spaces. Postcode sectors are not satisfactory, as on average,
there are only 26 per borough.
There are occasions when lists of species are obtained for wider
areas. These larger sites should be appropriate for the purpose.
For example, the sensible size for higher plants may be smaller
than that for birds. When adopting such larger sites it is desirable,
where possible, to reach a local agreement. The aim is to prevent
inadvertent disagreement on site and sub-site boundaries where
agreement can meet the purposes.
As a default, where there is no more sensible local decision,
the Partnership has recommended that the present Greater London
Authority’s (GLA) wildlife sites are used. This involves using
their site names, codes, grid references and boundaries. The site
details and boundaries will soon be available, on completion of
the contract between the GLA and London Wildlife Trust. As Sites
of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINCs) are recommended
for protection in statutory planning, it is important that they
are kept up to date. For this reason, the present sites will not
necessarily remain unchanged.
For recording on rivers, the default will be based on the Environment
Agency’s river corridor sites. These will probably be split into
reaches or 500m stretches for each bank.
For other features, where they fall outside of wildlife sites,
the default will be the GLA’s wildlife habitat survey parcels,
grid references, boundaries and codes. These parcels may also
sometimes serve as sub-sites of the GLA wildlife sites.
So, locations should follow this hierarchy, in order of preference:
