Latest News
February 2012:
Butterfly Conservation 
have now signed a data exchange agreement with BRIE, and will shortly be providing us with species information for Essex. This information will be pooled with existing information from our partners to facilitate conservation in Essex.
January 2012:
Following on from initial discussions in 2011, BRIE are pleased to announce the signing of a data exchange agreement with the National Trust . This agreement will cover the sharing of species data from National Trust sites throughout Essex, thereby aiding the conservation of these important areas for biodiversity. Thank you to the National Trust for joining the BRIE partnership.
December 2011:
Guidance for Local Authorities on accessing biodiversity information has recently been published by Natural England. For more information please click here
November 2011:
BRIE now holds bat roost data from Natural England! Following the signing of a license agreement earlier this year, BRIE now holds data on bat roosts in Essex.
October 2011:
BRIE is currently in the process of investing in new database software to make the process of reporting and querying the database easier and quicker. We are also working on progressing further funding agreements - watch this space!
September 2011:
Our draft Pricing Policy has now been approved by the BRIE Steering Group. This document sets out our standard charges for Service Level Agreements and proposed charges for consultancies and other organisations when this service is rolled out. For more details on the Pricing Policy please Contact Us.
August 2011:
A regional Code of Conduct for Local Records Centres has been developed by staff at the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Environmental Records Centre (CPERC). For more details click here.
We are currently developing a number of policy documents, more details to follow.
July 2011:
BRIE has now signed a data exchange agreement with Pond Conservation . As a result, we will soon have access to data on priority ponds throughout Essex and the species that they contain. Thank you to Pond Conservation for supporting the development of the BRIE database.
June 2011:
Natural England has recently received approval to release data on bat roosts to Local Records centres, and BRIE has now signed the license agreement to enable this data to be released to us. as a result bat roost data collected by Natural England will shortly be available to local authorities in Essex via BRIE.
May 2011:
Having shared data with Froglife in the past, BRIE is now pleased to confirm that we have signed a formal data exchange agreement with the organisation, to continue sharing data into the future. Thank you to Froglife for supporting the development of a local records centre in Essex.
Last month the Local Record Centres for Bedfordshire & Luton and Cambridgeshire & Peterborough held a Planning and Biodiversity Conference, which was well attended by planners throughout the region. Details of the event and related links can be found here
April 2011:
A new Standard Minimum Service for Local Records Centres in the East of England has been developed and will be launched in April 2011. For more details click here.
BRIE now holds data from the Essex Bat Group , following the signing of a data exchange agreement. This data is already being used to support the development of BRIE. Thank you to the Essex Bat Group committee for helping us to improve data exchange in Essex.
March 2011: BRIE has now signed a Service Level Agreement with the Environment Agency to secure funding for the year 2011-12. The new agreement will come into force on 1st April 2011. Thank you to the EA for working with us to get this agreement signed by the end of February, and for continuing to support the development of an Essex Records Centre.
February 2011:
BRIE now holds veteran tree data! Following the signing of a data exchange agreement with The Woodland Trust , Ancient Tree Hunt data is now available through BRIE.
January 2011: Following on from the successful Tendring pilot, agreements have been signed with Braintree District Council; Chelmsford Borough Council and Essex County Council to extend data provision to these local authorities and develop an Essex Records Centre. Further funding has also been received from Natural England to increase the amount of staff time allocated to BRIE from two to five days per week.
2010: BRIE was given new momentum in March 2010 following the East of England Local Records Centre Review, which led to the commencement of a pilot project trialling data provision to Tendring District Council. This project was hosted by Essex Wildlife Trust in partnership with Natural England and Essex County Council. The project ended in December 2010, and was successful in attracting support from other organisations to continue the development of an Essex Records Centre. Thank you to all of those organisations who participated in the pilot project.