Stansted Airport is home to a wide range of flora and fauna including great crested newts, skylarks, brown hare, water voles, deer, pyramidal and bee orchids, oxeye daisy, sulphur clover, and cowslips. There are also some important habitats, including a fen, ancient woodland and ancient hedges, as well as more than 900 hectares of land which has a rich archaeological history.

Our challenge is to manage any development and operations at the airport to avoid and/or mitigate for the impact on the biodiversity and archaeology of the site.

Broadly speaking the airport land is divided into three types within which different habitats occur:

• Airside grassland strictly regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority
• Amenity and public landscaped areas managed by specialist landscape contractors with extensive habitat experience at Stansted
• Land managed over the last 20 years specially for its ecological value with advice from expert ecologists.

This includes all areas of the airport not specifically mentioned above. In fact some of the grasslands are now of high ecological value owing to their species richness and affinities to national valuable grassland communities.

Four of our most environmentally rich habitats include:

• Eastend Wood, a 40-hectare SSSI (Site of Special Scientific Interest)
• The Fen, a site of nature conservation interest and local wildlife site
• The Wildlife area – a area of wildflower grassland
• The Habitat Creation area – created as habitat suitable for great crested newts (1999/2000).

Our approach
Our approach is to grow and operate our airport and non-airport businesses responsibly, in accordance with good practice principles for business and biodiversity, and to manage the impacts of our activities on biodiversity.

Stansted airport’s biodiversity management plan is to:

• Manage and maintain ecologically rich habitats to sustain biodiversity
• During airport and project development, maximise efficient land use and seek where possible to avoid conflict with biodiversity
• Where there is no viable alternative, to seek to mitigate and/or compensate for any negative biodiversity impacts through species translocation, habitat restoration or creation
• Take action to reduce indirect impacts on biodiversity through the supply chain and through other airport environmental aspects.

We manage our work in a variety of ways:

• Habitat management group – a monthly meeting to review our on site work plans
• Regular discussion with key stakeholders to share our plans and listen to their views or concerns
• Regular surveys and review of key projects by our expert external consultants to ensure we keep on track
• Training and competency development of our front line staff to understand our work and help us ensure any issues are optimally resolved.

More on... biodiversity

Our performance
Our plans