Natural England is working towards the systemic, large-scale recovery of nature that underpins growth, wellbeing, and national resilience. This Spring, we launched the Explore Framework: a practical framework designed to help councils make better decisions for people and places. Explore brings together evidence on health, wellbeing, nature, and sustainability into a single, accessible platform. It supports more joined-up strategic planning by helping users understand how different local factors interact, enabling more informed and collaborative decision-making on cross-cutting issues. It was co-developed with several pilot authorities and partner organisations, and is hosted online by Local Partnerships.
Explore brings together four key components: data dashboards, factor maps, horizon-scanning tools and facilitated workshop resources, enabling teams to explore future scenarios, understand trade-offs and identify actions that deliver multiple benefits for communities and the environment.
Find out more via Local Partnerships' Explore Framework webpages (https://localpartnerships.gov.uk/explore-framework-toolkit-introduction/) and visit our stand to discover how Explore can support strategic planning, including local plan development, healthy place-making, nature recovery, growth and investment decisions.