Natural England are the government’s adviser for the natural environment in England, helping to protect England’s nature and landscapes for people to enjoy and for the services they provide. They are the authoritative provider of boundary information for areas including Sites of Special Scientific Interest, National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Natural Nature Reserves.
Natural England are now publishing these datasets through their ArcGIS Online account. This is great news, as the data is now available in the ArcGIS platform but maintained by Natural England themselves. These datasets are currently available:
Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty
http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=6f2ad07d91304ad79cdecd52489d5046
National Parks
http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=d333c7529754444894e2d7f5044d1bbf
These datasets and many more will be available in the coming months on Natural England’s new ArcGIS Open Data site!
Before the existence of these new services, Esri UK published a number of similar services on ArcGIS Online compiled from data provided by Natural England. These services were published to make it easy for our customers to find and use the Natural England boundaries within the platform. These have been superseded and will be retired on the 28th of February 2017.