Improving Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI sites) performance commitment data
What are performance commitments (PCs)?
The water regulator Ofwat sets targets called performance commitments (PCs) to ensure companies deliver the best possible service for customers, society and the environment. Wessex Water has a range of PCs for the 2020-25 period.
Each year we report our results against these commitments, in our Annual Performance Report.
Where appropriate we’re publishing the data underpinning calculation of the PCs – you can find our other PC datasets in the Performance Commitments section.
Improve SSSI sites PC
Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) are legally protected areas where the land’s wildlife, geology or landform is of special interest. SSSIs can be divided into SSSI units for management purposes. In England SSSIs are identified and protected by Natural England.
Wessex Water owns almost 300 hectares of land with SSSI status. In 2020, we worked with Natural England to agree specific actions to understand and improve the condition of areas of Wessex Water’s SSSI land, for tracking in this PC.
Only SSSIs where Wessex Water was anticipated to have ownership of the land for the 2020-25 period were eligible (i.e. areas of land where Wessex Water only has a lease or rights in land were excluded). Furthermore, only parcels of SSSI land over 5,000 m3 (0.5 ha) OR of more than 1% of the SSSI unit area were eligible. Just over 280 hectares of our SSSI land was included in this PC.
For many of the SSSIs, multiple actions were agreed, because:
- More than one type of action was required;
- The same type of action was required on different SSSI units within the same SSSI; or
- The same type of action was required on land with different tenure within the same SSSI unit (e.g. land owned and occupied by Wessex Water or land owned by Wessex Water but occupied by a third party).
Each year we produce a suite of reports detailing the actions undertaken and the sites improved that year. The ‘improve SSSI sites’ PC reports the percentage of actions which we have delivered.
This PC incentivises us to deliver actions agreed with Natural England to improve the SSSIs in our care.
Dataset details
The dataset provides a summary of the actions completed each year towards the ‘improve SSSI sites’ PC. Many SSSI names appear multiple times in this dataset. This is because multiple actions have been completed there in that reporting year.
|
Column position |
Column heading |
Description |
Units |
|
1 |
APR reporting year |
The reporting year that this action contributes towards, e.g. 2020-2021, 2021-2022. |
N/A |
|
2 |
Action ref |
A reference number that links back to the master list of actions agreed with Natural England. |
N/A |
|
3 |
SSSI name | The name of the SSSI at which the action was completed. | N/A |
|
4 |
Area of SSSI unit in WW ownership |
The area of the SSSI unit within Wessex Water’s ownership at which the action was completed. | hectares |
|
5 |
Action type |
The type of action that was completed. There are three possible entries: ‘Condition Review’ – generally these are actions around assessing the current condition of the SSSI ‘Land Management Review’ – generally these are actions around assessing how the land is currently managed and revising this as needed ‘Remedies Delivery’ – generally these are actions involving work to the land to address any points raised in a condition or land management review |
N/A |
| 6 |
Action completed |
A description of the work that was carried out, i.e., the action that was agreed with Natural England. |
N/A |
| 7 |
Year of action |
The calendar year in which the action was completed. |
N/A |
How was this data collated?
As progress on each action is made, we compile the necessary evidence. Each year this evidence is presented to an independent auditor for confirmation that the action has been completed to the required specification and standard. Each completed action is then signed off by the Wessex Water Catchment Panel. The published data is an extract from our central log of the agreed actions.
Publish frequency
For the remaining years of the 2020-25 period, an additional year of data will be added after the annual reporting period.
Contact
If you have any questions or comments about this data set, please get in touch via opendata@wessexwater.co.uk
Terms of use
This dataset is licensed under CC BY, an open data licence, to make it freely available to other potential customers, stakeholders or interested organisations.
About this dataset
| Last updated |
2 days ago
|
| Commitments |
|