Biodiversity
Action
Plan
Statutory designated sites. Sites identified as nationally important for their habitat or wildlife species have special legal protection to prevent damage and to require conservation.
Dark Peak Site of Special Scientific Interest falls partly in Barnsley.
Dearne Valley Wetlands SSSI is a series of sites in the NIA.
It was designated as a SSSI by Natural England in January 2022 for its assemblages of breeding birds of damp grasslands and scrub, open waters and their marginal habitats, reedbeds and fen.
Breeding birds for which it is designated include: Bittern, Gadwall, Garganey, Pochard and Shoveler, as well as Black-headed Gull, and Willow Tit.
For more information: Dearne Valley Wetlands SSSI.
Please note that there is no public right of entry to any site as a result of its designation without the permission of the landowner.
Pye Flatts Meadows SSSI near Silkstone and Hoylandswaine, consists of three fields of neutral hay-meadow grassland. Diverse grasses and flowering plant species suggest they are a product of traditional grassland management. Access
Spring Meadows, Alderman’s Head and Cox Croft Meadows SSSI, near Langsett, has eleven fields which have been traditionally managed for hay crop with late summer mowing.
Pye Flatts Meadow: Granville Danny Clarke
Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs)
SSSIs were originally set up by the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949.
The Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, as amended in 1985 and by the Countryside and Rights of Way Act in 2000, provides the statutory protection for designated sites in England, including those of European importance. (See below)
Natural England designates SSSIs, s responsible for ensuring they are managed appropriately and monitors their condition.
The best examples of each special habitat are identified for SSSI status in each national character area.
Sites of particular significance for different wildlife groups may also be selected.
Sites of European importance
Special Protection Areas (SPAs) for Birds and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) are of European importance. They have been notified under the EU Birds Directive and Habitats Directive.
They also fulfil requirements placed on the UK by its being a signatory in 1982 to the Bern Convention, to which 50 countries are signatories.
SPAs are areas of the most important habitat for certain particularly threatened and/or migratory birds within Europe.
SACs contain the most important habitats within Europe or support certain threatened species other than birds.
Defra:
Natural England:
Extensive tracts of moorland in the Dark Peak, including upland heath & blanket mire, are protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, SSSI.
In addition to their SSSI status, South Pennine Moors is also designated as a Special Protection Area (SPA) for upland breeding birds including Dunlin, Golden Plover, Merlin and Short-eared Owl, and as a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) for their habitats.
Two sets of meadows in Barnsley are designated as SSSIs.
1 Pool Ings
2 Carlton Marsh
3 Cudworth Common (part)
4 Edderthorpe Ings
5 Edderthorpe Ings tbc
6 tbc
7 Little Houghton
8 Doveside
9 Parkhill
10 Wombwell Ings
11 Broomhill Flash and Fleet
12 Gypsy Marsh
13 Broomhill park
14 Mullins
15 Bolton Ings
16 Warbler Way
17 Old Moor & Wath Ings
18 Manvers [Rotherham]
19 Adwick Washlands
20 Former railway Smithley
21 Barrow & Hay Green
22 Worsbrough C P (part)
tbc = names to be confirmed
Dearne Valley Wetlands SSSI consists of 22 ‘units’:
Statutory Designated Sites