Local nature reserve

Local nature reserve or LNR is a designation for nature reserves in Great Britain. The designation has its origin in the recommendations of the Wild Life Conservation Special Committee which established the framework for nature conservation in the United Kingdom and suggested a national suite of protected areas comprising national nature reserves, conservation areas (which incorporated suggestions for Sites of Special Scientific Interest), national parks, geological monuments, local nature reserves and local educational nature reserves.

There are now over 1,280 LNRs in England, covering almost 40,000 hectares, which range from windswept coastal headlands and ancient woodlands to former inner city railways and long abandoned landfill sites.

The National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 combined elements of several of these categories in its definition of a nature reserve (Section 15). The hope of the Special Committee was to see sites protected which represented sites of local scientific interest, which could be used by schools for field teaching and experiment, and in which people with no special interest in natural history could "...derive great pleasure from the peaceful contemplation of nature."

A local nature reserve is a statutory designation made under Section 21 – "Establishment of nature reserves by local authorities" – of the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949 by principal local authorities (district, borough or unitary councils) in England, Scotland and Wales. Parish and town councils in England have no direct power to designate nature reserves, but they can have the powers to do so delegated to them by their principal local authority using section 101 of the Local Government Act 1972.

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