Item6Appendix2HRAprevious20200236DETand20200241LBC

CAIRNGORMS NATION­AL PARK AUTHOR­ITY Plan­ning Com­mit­tee Agenda Item 6 Appendix 2 26/02/2021

AGENDA ITEM 6

APPENDIX 2

2020/0236/DET & 2020/0241/LBC

HRA (FROM 2016/0153/DET)

Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Assess­ment: 2016/0153/DET Bal­avil Mains Farm­house, Kingussie

Intro­duc­tion This is a record of the assess­ment under reg­u­la­tion 48 of the Con­ser­va­tion (Nat­ur­al Hab­it­ats, &c.) Reg­u­la­tions 1994 (as amended) for the plan­ning applic­a­tion 2016/0153/DET made by the Bal­avil Estate. The devel­op­ment is for the con­ver­sion of redund­ant farm build­ings to vis­it­or facil­it­ies and com­mer­cial use, includ­ing alter­a­tions and exten­sions of exist­ing struc­tures. Con­struc­tion of new build­ings for café, cater­ing and events use and form­a­tion of park­ing areas.

The pro­pos­al lies imme­di­ately adja­cent to the Raitts burn, which forms part of the River Spey SAC. There is poten­tial that dur­ing clear­ance of the site, con­struc­tion of car park­ing and renov­a­tion of build­ings, that pol­lu­tion and silta­tion of the Raitts burn could occur should mater­i­al from the site run-off into the burn.

Back­ground to the assess­ment The prin­cip­al doc­u­ments which have been taken into account for this assess­ment are:

Otter Sur­vey, Atmos Con­sult­ing (Octo­ber, 2016) Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan- Otter, Atmos Con­sult­ing (Octo­ber, 2016) Orni­tho­lo­gic­al Sur­vey, Atmos Con­sult­ing (Octo­ber, 2016) Orni­tho­lo­gic­al Pro­tec­tion Plan, Atmos Con­sult­ing (Octo­ber, 2016) Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan, Atmos Con­sult­ing (Octo­ber, 2016) SNH Natura Apprais­al (Feb­ru­ary, 2017)

Table 1. Stages of Assessment

Stages of Assessment
Stage I	Decide wheth­er pro­pos­al is sub­ject to HRA
Stage 2	Identi­fy Natura Sites that should be con­sidered and gath­er inform­a­tion about the Natura Sites
Stage 3	Con­sulta­tion on the meth­od and scope of the apprais­al with SNH and oth­ers. Request addi­tion­al inform­a­tion from applic­ant if required.
Stage 4	Screen­ing the pro­pos­al for likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects on Natura sites includ­ing mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures included with­in the proposal
Stage 5	Screen for ​“in com­bin­a­tion effects” with oth­er plans or projects

| Stage 6 | Appro­pri­ate Assess­ment to determ­ine effect upon con­ser­va­tion object­ives. Pre­lim­in­ary con­clu­sion about adverse effect upon the integ­rity of any site. | | Stage 7 | Con­sulta­tion with SNH (and oth­ers if con­sidered appro­pri­ate) | | Stage 8 | Apply addi­tion­al mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures, if required, via con­di­tions or agree­ments to ensure that there is no adverse effect on site integ­rity | | Stage 9 | Con­clu­sion on Integ­rity test | | Stage 10 | Reg­u­la­tion 49 derog­a­tion pro­ced­ures. This only applies if adverse effects remain and Com­pet­ent Author­ity still wishes to approve the application |

Stages 1 – 5 describ­ing the Natura sites and Screening

The pro­posed devel­op­ment is not wholly con­cerned with the neces­sary man­age­ment of a European site for nature con­ser­va­tion and requires plan­ning per­mis­sion and so the plans must be sub­ject to assess­ment under the terms of Dir­ect­ive 92/43/EEC.

Stages 2: Iden­ti­fic­a­tion of Natura Sites and gath­er­ing their details

The list below is those sites that have been taken for­ward to screen­ing for likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects. See Appendix I for details on each site and its qual­i­fy­ing features.

Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC) • River Spey • Insh Marshes SAC

Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA) • Spey-Insh Marshes SPA

Stage 3: Dis­cus­sions on the meth­od and scope of the apprais­al and requests for addi­tion­al information

Advice has been sought from SNH as to the poten­tial for the pro­pos­al to impact on the River Spey SAC. SNH have determ­ined that due to the close prox­im­ity of the Raitts burn which forms part of the River Spey SAC, the pro­pos­al could affect the SAC. The qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures of the River Spey SAC are Atlantic sal­mon, Otter, Sea Lamprey and Fresh­wa­ter Pearl Mus­sel. Advice was provided by Sue Scog­gins to Hay­ley Wiswell on the 13^th June 2016. SNH

have also sub­mit­ted a response to the applic­a­tion (dated 26^th May 2016) and the inform­a­tion with­in this response was used to determ­ine if there would be any Likely Sig­ni­fic­ant Effects.

Addi­tion­al inform­a­tion rel­ev­ant for this HRA was reques­ted from the applic­ant on the 14^th June 2016 and included: • A Con­struc­tion Envir­on­ment­al Plan with Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan; and • An Otter sur­vey sub­mit­ted with Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan if found to be present with­in sur­vey area

These were provided on 1^st Feb­ru­ary 2017 and SNH were re-con­sul­ted and provided fur­ther advice on the impacts to Qual­i­fy­ing Interests of the River Spey SAC on the 8^th Feb­ru­ary 2017.

Stage 4: Screen­ing the pro­pos­al for likely sig­ni­fic­ant effects

The effects iden­ti­fied are dis­cussed in Table 3 below.

Table 3. Screen­ing for LSE from Bal­avil Mains Farm­house development

River Spey SAC

Qual­i­fy­ing Fea­ture Affected	Pos­sible effect of devel­op­ment	Likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect	Dur­a­tion	Screen­ing assess­ment	Screen­ing Outcome
Otter	Pol­lu­tion of water­courses through run — off dur­ing con­struc­tion: silta­tion dur­ing ground excav­a­tion work, fuel or oth­er chem­ic­al run-off	Pol­lu­tion from chem­ic­al leak­age and silta­tion cloud­ing water	Tem­por­ary, dur­ing con­struc­tion only	Otter are using the Raitts burn for com­mut­ing, for­aging and rest­ing (Atmos Con­sult­ing, 2016)A pol­lu­tion event in the Raitts burn could impact on otters by pol­lut­ing water and food supply.A detailed Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan (PPP) has been provided (Atmos Con­sult­ing, 2016) that will pre­vent pol­lu­tion of the Raitts Burn.	No Effect
	Visu­al and noise dis­turb­ance dur­ing construction.Trapping and injury.	Dis­turb­ance of for­aging hab­it­at lead­ing to dis­place­ment. Trap­ping of or injury to otter dur­ing construction	Tem­por­ary, dur­ing con­struc­tion only	Otter are using the Raitts burn for com­mut­ing, for­aging and rest­ing (Atmos Con­sult­ing, 2016).Physical injury or even death of indi­vidu­al otters. Dis­turb­ance cre­ated by noise, machinery, etc could dis­place otter on the burnA Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan has been provided (Atmos Con­sult­ing, 2016) that out­lines a num­ber of meas­ures that will pre­vent dis­turb­ance, trap­ping or injury:A SNH licence is required if works are car­ried out with­in 30m of the iden­ti­fied couchA pre-con­struc­tion sur­vey is required­Min­im­ised con­struc­tion foot­print with des­ig­nated routes­Tool­box talk on otter pro­tec­tion giv­en to all con­struc­tion staffRe­cor­ded checks on site machinery before oper­a­tion each dayE­COW present on site or con­tact­able at all times dur­ing construction.	Likely Sig­ni­fic­ant Effect Alone
	Dis­turb­ance due to lighting	Dis­turb­ance to for­aging hab­it­at lead­ing to displacement	Per­man­ent, dur­ing con­struc­tion and dur­ing oper­a­tion­al phase of development	If light­ing were to spill onto the Raitts burn dur­ing con­struc­tion or when oper­a­tion­al, otter could be dis­turbed whilst foraging/​commuting at night.The Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan (Atmos Con­sult­ing, 2016) provides two meas­ures, adher­ence to these will pre­vent dis­turb­ance at night:• Flood­light­ing will be dir­ec­ted away from the water­course and oth­er sens­it­ive hab­it­ats• Per­man­ent arti­fi­cial light­ing will be designed to not shine on the ripari­an corridor	No Effect
	Loss of ripari­an hab­it­at dur­ing construction	Loss of hab­it­at lead­ing to reduc­tion in use for com­mut­ing and foraging	Tem­por­ary until rees­tab­lish­ment of ripari­an habitat	The spe­cies pro­tec­tion plan has iden­ti­fied that reten­tion of ripari­an hab­it­at is key to redu­cing dis­turb­ance to otter dur­ing con­struc­tion and main­tain­ing hab­it­at in the long term. There are no pro­pos­als with­in the devel­op­ment plan to remove ripari­an habitat.	No Effect
Atlantic sal­mon	Pol­lu­tion of water­courses through run — off dur­ing con­struc­tion: silta­tion dur­ing ground excav­a­tion work, fuel or oth­er chem­ic­al run-off	Pol­lu­tion from chem­ic­al leak­age and silta­tion cloud­ing water	Tem­por­ary, dur­ing con­struc­tion only	The Spey Fish­ery Board hold data for the Raitts burn. The lower sec­tions of the Raiits burn are heav­ily mod­i­fied and as such the num­bers of sal­mon using the burn are gen­er­ally small. Some spawn­ing activ­ity adja­cent to the devel­op­ment has been observed, but instances are few.Despite low num­bers of sal­mon, a pol­lu­tion event in the burn still has poten­tial to impact on this spe­cies abil­ity to use the burn.A detailed Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan (PPP) has been provided (Atmos Con­sult­ing, 2016) that will pre­vent pol­lu­tion of the Raitts Burn.	No Effect
Fresh water pearl mussel	Pol­lu­tion of water­courses through run — off dur­ing con­struc­tion: silta­tion dur­ing ground excav­a­tion work, fuel or oth­er chem­ic­al run-off	Pol­lu­tion from chem­ic­al leak­age and silta­tion cloud­ing water	Tem­por­ary, dur­ing con­struc­tion only	Site Con­di­tion Mon­it­or­ing of the River Spey for fresh water pearl mus­sel in 2013/2014 (the most recent sur­vey) and the pre­vi­ous sur­vey (2010) found no mus­sels in the sec­tion of River Spey which includes the Raiits burn confluence.Fresh water pearl mus­sel are not known to exist in the Raitts burn, and recent sur­veys reveal that they are not present at the con­flu­ence of the Raiits burn and River Spey. As such, an impact on this spe­cies through a pol­lu­tion event in the Raiits burn is not likely.	No effect
Sea lamprey	Pol­lu­tion of water­courses through run — off dur­ing con­struc­tion: silta­tion dur­ing ground excav­a­tion work, fuel or oth­er chem­ic­al run-off	Pol­lu­tion from chem­ic­al leak­age and silta­tion cloud­ing water	Tem­por­ary, dur­ing con­struc­tion only	Sur­veys under­taken for Spey River Basin Man­age­ment Plan (Cyclel 1999 – 2005 and Cycle 2 2005 – 2012) did not find sea lamprey in either this reach of the River Spey or the Aviemore Burn. There are no known sites for sea lamprey upstream of Boat of Garten​.As such, an impact on this spe­cies through a pol­lu­tion event in the Raiits burn is not likely.	No effect

Qual­i­fy­ing Fea­ture Affected	Pos­sible effect of devel­op­ment	Likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect	Dur­a­tion	Screen­ing assess­ment	Screen­ing Outcome
Alder wood on flood­plain Clear­wa­ter lochs with aquat­ic veget­a­tion­Very Wet Mires	Pol­lu­tion of water­courses through run — off dur­ing con­struc­tion: silta­tion dur­ing ground excav­a­tion work, fuel or oth­er chem­ic­al run-off	Pol­lu­tion from chem­ic­al leak­age and silta­tion cloud­ing water	Tem­por­ary, dur­ing con­struc­tion only	A pol­lu­tion event in the Raitts burn could cause down­stream pol­lu­tion, which may be det­ri­ment­al to these habitats.A detailed Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan (PPP) has been provided (Atmos Con­sult­ing, 2016) that will pre­vent pol­lu­tion of the Raitts Burn and there­fore the Insh Marshes SAC.	No Effect
Otter	Pol­lu­tion of water­courses through run — off dur­ing con­struc­tion: silta­tion dur­ing ground excav­a­tion work, fuel or oth­er chem­ic­al run-off	Pol­lu­tion from chem­ic­al leak­age and silta­tion cloud­ing water	Tem­por­ary, dur­ing con­struc­tion only	Otter are using the Raitts burn for com­mut­ing, for­aging and rest­ing (Atmos Con­sult­ing, 2016).The Insh marshes provides good otter hab­it­at and sup­ports a good pop­u­la­tion linked to that of the River Spey SAC.A pol­lu­tion event in the Raitts burn could impact on otters by pol­lut­ing water and food sup­ply in the Insh Marshes SAC.A detailed Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan (PPP) has been provided (Atmos Con­sult­ing, 2016) that will pre­vent pol­lu­tion of the Raitts Burn and there­fore also the Insh Marshes SAC.	No Effect

Insh marshes SPA

Qual­i­fy­ing Fea­ture Affected	Pos­sible effect of devel­op­ment	Likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect	Dur­a­tion	Screen­ing assess­ment	Screen­ing Outcome
Hen har­ri­er	Visu­al and noise dis­turb­ance dur­ing con­struc­tion and operation.	Dis­turb­ance to foraging	Per­man­ent, dur­ing con­struc­tion and dur­ing oper­a­tion­al phase of development	Hen Har­ri­ers are non-breed­ing at this site and it there is abund­ant for­aging hab­it­at at the Insh Marshes, they will not be dis­turbed by this proposal.	No Effect
Osprey	Visu­al and noise dis­turb­ance dur­ing con­struc­tion and operation.	Dis­turb­ance to breeding	Per­man­ent, dur­ing con­struc­tion and dur­ing oper­a­tion­al phase of development	Osprey are known to breed with­in 2km of the site, no old nests were found dur­ing the orni­tho­lo­gic­al sur­veys but there is suit­able habitat.Mitigation pro­pos­als sub­mit­ted with­in the Orni­tho­lo­gic­al Pro­tec­tion Plan have a require­ment for a pre-con­struc­tion sur­vey for Osprey with­in a 500m radi­us of the devel­op­ment site. If signs of nest­ing are observed a Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan will be put in place.	No Effect
Spot­ted Crake	Visu­al and noise dis­turb­ance dur­ing con­struc­tion and operation.	Dis­turb­ance to breeding	Per­man­ent, dur­ing con­struc­tion and dur­ing oper­a­tion­al phase of development	This spe­cies is found in the Insh Marshes and would not be util­ising the hab­it­at around the devel­op­ment applic­a­tion area so is not at risk from disturbance.	No Effect
Whoop­er Swan	Visu­al and noise dis­turb­ance dur­ing con­struc­tion and operation.	Dis­turb­ance to foraging	Per­man­ent, dur­ing con­struc­tion and dur­ing oper­a­tion­al phase of development	This spe­cies is found win­ter­ing in and around the Insh Marshes, pre­fer­ring open hab­it­at and water to roost it is unlikely to be util­ising the hab­it­at around the devel­op­ment applic­a­tion area and there­fore is not at risk from disturbance.	No Effect
Wigeon	Visu­al and noise dis­turb­ance dur­ing con­struc­tion and operation.	Dis­turb­ance to foraging	Per­man­ent, dur­ing con­struc­tion and dur­ing oper­a­tion­al phase of development	This spe­cies is found win­ter­ing in and around the Insh Marshes, pre­fer­ring open hab­it­at and water to roost it is unlikely to be util­ising the hab­it­at around the devel­op­ment applic­a­tion area and there­fore is not at risk from disturbance.	No Effect

Stage 5: In-com­bin­a­tion effects

The plans and pro­jects in Table 4 have been searched for any likely insig­ni­fic­ant effects that may com­bine with those iden­ti­fied the pro­posed development.

No Minor Resid­ual Effects were iden­ti­fied dur­ing the Appro­pri­ate Assess­ment or screen­ing of the pro­pos­al, there­fore there are no pos­sible in-com­bin­a­tion effects.

Stages 6 – 10 Assess­ment and Conclusions

Stage 6: Appro­pri­ate Assessment

The pro­pos­als have been screened in Stages 4 and 5. It was found that the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures pro­posed as part of the applic­a­tion were adequate to ensure no neg­at­ive effect on qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures of the River Spey SAC, River Spey Insh marshes SPA/SAC, apart from one which was dis­turb­ance to Otter, it was con­sidered that this could be addressed through simple mit­ig­a­tion alone there­fore no Appro­pri­ate Assess­ment is required.

Stage 7: Consultation

Wider con­sulta­tion of the draft report is at the dis­cre­tion of the com­pet­ent author­ity. In this case, con­sulta­tion with SNH was car­ried out in order to decide on the scope of the assess­ment. Data was also provided by the Spey Fish­ery Board as to the num­bers of Atlantic sal­mon using the Raitts burn. Site Con­di­tion Mon­it­or­ing data of the River Spey was also used in order to ascer­tain the pres­ence of fresh water pearl mus­sel and sea lamprey in the Raiits burn.

SNH have provided fur­ther com­ment on a draft of this HRA on the 3^rd April 2017 and agree with the state­ments at Stage 6 and 7, addi­tion­al mit­ig­a­tion in Stage 8 and final con­clu­sion at Stage 9 and have no fur­ther comment.

Stage 8: Addi­tion­al mit­ig­a­tion • The fol­low­ing meas­ure must be inser­ted into the Otter Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plan

‘To avoid any dis­turb­ance and there­fore reduc­tion in feed­ing capa­city, or acci­dent­al harm to otter from con­struc­tion traffic, works will be lim­ited to day­light hours and will not start until one hour after sun­rise and cease one hour before sunset.’

Stage 9: Con­clu­sion on the integ­rity test

This assess­ment based upon the best avail­able sci­entif­ic evid­ence and advice offered from SNH and oth­ers has shown that, with the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures described with­in the Spe­cies Pro­tec­tion Plans and Pol­lu­tion Pre­ven­tion Plan, there is not a likely sig­ni­fic­ant effect from the pro­posed devel­op­ment upon the qual­i­fy­ing fea­tures or the con­ser­va­tion object­ives for the fol­low­ing Natura sites: • River Spey SAC • Insh Marshes SAC • Insh Marshes SPA

We there­fore con­clude that the pro­posed devel­op­ment, sub­ject to the mit­ig­a­tion meas­ures iden­ti­fied in this appro­pri­ate assess­ment and applied to any con­sent, will not adversely affect the integ­rity of any of these sites.

Stage 10: Sec­tion 49 (derog­a­tion)

The con­clu­sion that there is no adverse effect upon the integ­rity of any of the Natura sites covered in this report means that reg­u­la­tion 49 is not relevant.

Sum­mary of resid­ual effects

No Minor Resid­ual Effects were identified.

Ref­er­ences

Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions pro­cess Coun­cil Dir­ect­ive 92/43/EEC ​“the Hab­it­ats Dir­ect­ive” EEC adop­ted 1992 Man­aging Natura 2000 sites – EU com­munit­ies 2000 Guid­ance doc­u­ment on Art­icle 6(4) of the ​‘Hab­it­ats Dir­ect­ive’ 92/43/EEC — EC 2007 The Con­ser­va­tion (Nat­ur­al Hab­it­ats, &c.) Reg­u­la­tions 1994 (as amended) Welsh Assembly Gov­ern­ment TAN 5: Nature Con­ser­va­tion and Plan­ning — 2009 Hab­it­at Reg­u­la­tions Apprais­al of Plans – Guid­ance for Plan Mak­ing Bod­ies in Scot­land SNH/DTA August 2012 (Ver­sion 2.0)

Oth­er sources Report of Site Con­di­tion Mon­it­or­ing sur­vey of fresh­wa­ter pearl mus­sels in the River Spey dur­ing 2013 and 2014. SNH, lain Sime 2014. Laughton, R., and Burns, S. (2003). Assess­ment of sea lamprey dis­tri­bu­tion and abund­ance in the River Spey: Phase III. Scot­tish Nat­ur­al Her­it­age Com­mis­sioned Report No. 043 (ROAME No. F02AC604).

Appendix I

Details of Natura 2000 sites with­in, or adja­cent to, the pro­posed devel­op­ment site

Name of European Site	River Spey
Site Type	Spe­cial Area of Conservation
Con­ser­va­tion Objectives	To avoid deteri­or­a­tion of the hab­it­ats of the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies (lis­ted below) or sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance to the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies, thus ensur­ing that the integ­rity of the site is main­tained; andTo ensure for the qual­i­fy­ing spe­cies that the fol­low­ing are main­tained in the long-term:Population of the spe­cies as a viable com­pon­ent of the siteDis­tri­bu­tion of the spe­cies with­in the siteDis­tri­bu­tion and extent of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­cies­Struc­ture, func­tion and sup­port­ing pro­cess of hab­it­ats sup­port­ing the spe­ciesNo sig­ni­fic­ant dis­turb­ance of the species
Qual­i­fy­ing Species	Sea lamprey (Pet­romyzon marinus)Otter (Lut­ra lutra)Atlantic sal­mon (Salmo salar)Freshwater pearl mus­sel (Mar­gar­i­ti­fera margaritifera)
Site Con­di­tion	FWPM — Unfa­vour­able declin­ing, 2014Sea lamprey — Favour­able main­tained, 2011Otter — Favour­able main­tained, 2011Atlantic sal­mon – Unfa­vour­able declin­ing, 2011
Factors cur­rently influ­en­cing site	In terms of devel­op­ment, none at present
Vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies to change/​potential effects of the Plan	Effects on water qual­ity includ­ing sew­er­age treat­ment, release of min­er­als, con­tam­in­a­tion or oth­er pol­lu­tion and waste­Func­tion­ing of flood plains and the river sys­tem­Ab­strac­tion of water­Rel­ev­ant set­tle­ments: Dal­whin­nie, New­ton­more, Kin­gussie, An Camus Mòr, Aviemore, Inver­druie, Kin­craig, Insh, Boat of Garten, Carr-Bridge, Dul­nain Bridge, Nethy Bridge, Grant­own-on-Spey, Cromdale

Insert Insh marshes one

Appendix 2 Gloss­ary of terms and abbreviations

Appro­pri­ate Assessment(AA)	The part of the Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tions Assess­ment pro­cess that con­siders the effects of an aspect of a plan upon the con­ser­va­tion object­ives for a Natura site.
CNPA	Cairngorms Nation­al Park Authority
CNAP	Cairngorms Nature Action Plan
Com­pet­ent Authority	The decision mak­ing body required under the Hab­it­ats Dir­ect­ive to under­take HRA. This includes Scot­tish Gov­ern­ment, Nation­al Park Author­it­ies, SNH, SEPA or Loc­al Authorities.
CPP	Core Paths Plan
Hab­it­ats Reg­u­la­tionAs­sess­ment (HRA)	The whole apprais­al pro­cess for determ­in­ing effects upon Natura Sites. It includes Appro­pri­ate Assess­ments. It is a require­ment by the Hab­it­ats Dir­ect­ive that com­pet­ent author­it­ies carry out HRAs where a plan or pro­ject affects a Natura site.
CLDP	Draft Cairngorms Nation­al Park Loc­al Devel­op­ment Plan
Likely Sig­ni­fic­ant Effect	An adverse effect of the devel­op­ment upon a qual­i­fy­ing interest or con­ser­va­tion object­ive that is con­sidered to be poten­tially severe enough as to threaten the integ­rity of the Natura site itself.
Natura Sites	Col­lect­ive term for Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Areas and Spe­cial Areas of Conservation
Ram­sar sites	Ram­sar sites are wet­lands of inter­na­tion­al import­ance des­ig­nated under the Ram­sar Con­ven­tion 1971. Not tech­nic­ally Natura sites they are how­ever usu­ally also SPAs. They are included with­in the HRA pro­cess by policy.
Spe­cial Area of Con­ser­va­tion (SAC)	An area des­ig­nated for the pro­tec­tion of hab­it­ats and spe­cies. Author­ised under Coun­cil Dir­ect­ive 92/43/EEC on the con­ser­va­tion of nat­ur­al hab­it­ats and of wild fauna and flora (com­monly called the ​“Hab­it­ats Dir­ect­ive”). One of three des­ig­na­tion to be con­sidered in a HRA
Spe­cial Pro­tec­tion Area (SPA)	An area des­ig­na­tion for the pro­tec­tion of birds. Author­ised by the Dir­ect­ive 2009/147/EC of the European Par­lia­ment and of the Coun­cil (com­monly called the ​“Birds Dir­ect­ive”). One of three des­ig­na­tion to be con­sidered in a HRA