I’ve just taken a look at Brighton and Hove City Council’s draft Biodiversity and Nature Conservation supplementary planning document. It’s good to know that in both 2013 and 2019, the area around Brighton Station including Brighton Greenway has been confirmed as a local wildlife site or LWS.
What is now Brighton Greenway was originally made a Site of Nature Conservation Interest (SNCI) back in 1992, confirmed in 1995. The LWS designation is non-statutory but these sites are designated locally as being important for nature conservation and biodiversity.
It is expected that these sites will be “identified, mapped and safeguarded through the Local Plan system” acknowledging “the role they play as part of wider ecological networks”.
Over the years, we’ve tried to keep some record of the range of wildflowers and insects that inhabit the Greenway. We’ll be going back to that this year to update records and see if things have changed markedly.