The habitat areas contained herein have been derived using the best available desktop information at the time of plan preparation in addition to field survey. This includes OSNI orthos and condition assessment data and reports 2002-2016. Land owned to the west of the SAC was not accessible for field survey, so classifications of habitat were based off historic condition assessment data and orthophotography.

Plantation woodland, where it still retains a natural understory and ground flora has been included as the Annex 1 oak woodland.

Habitats from outside the SAC boundary were mapped to Phase 1 and Eunis, as these were mapped solely from aerial imagery. No Annex 1 habitat was considered for areas outside the SAC boundary.

Bog woodland H91D0 was identified according to the definition of ‘long-term stable combinations with bog vegetation’ and was mostly limited to polygons less than minimum mappable area on this site occurring in small pockets throughout the wet woodland. As per JNCC description secondary birch woodland on degraded bogs, and woodland encroachment resulting from falling water tables, were excluded from the Annex 1 H91D0 definition. Mosaic H91D0 comprises of a mosaic of bog woodland and wet woodland.

Small units of scrub have been included within the classification of woodland (A1.1.1) and H91A0.

Field Surveys were carried out on site in August 2019 and corrected to OSNI Orthophotography by desk based study. This site was mapped by Arup. Site visits were conducted by NIEA post-map production to ground truth a proportion of the mapping.

The habitat map was created at 1:1,000 scale and mapped to Phase 1, EUNIS and Annex 1, where appropriate.

It is intended that this map will be reviewed as required. This version was completed on 12 October 2021.

For more information on Annex 1 codes in the UK please see the following website - https://sac.jncc.gov.uk/habitat/