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Natural Environment and Rural Communities Bill

The amendments do two important things. The first is a small facilitating measure that will benefit landowners and occupiers, especially by removing the implication that the power to denotify SSSI land should be available only if it was previously of special interest. In essence, and without detracting from the main purpose of the provision, it provides for a simple remedy for any landowner or occupier who discovers that a part of his land has been mistakenly included in the boundary of a SSSI, for example, because of a cartographical discrepancy between paper and digitised maps. The second amendment benefits the public interest. By the strong will of Parliament, shown in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, the conservation bodies have been required to serve SSSI notifications on every owner or occupier of the land in question. Despite their best efforts, that can be a tall order, given the paucity of comprehensive sources of land tenure information. The amendment introduces a saving to ensure that, provided that all reasonable steps have been taken to discharge the notification duty, SSSIs, present or future, will not be rendered invalid by reason of it later being discovered that some relevant party’s interests were not identified when the notification was served. Importantly, the provision protects any such missed party from any liability for things that happened before commencement, and they become fully liable as a notified owner or occupier only after they have come to light and the notification papers have been served on them by the relevant conservation body.