Effective from 1st April 2025, TVERC will be implementing changes due to significant cost increases that have impacted our operational costs. These changes are necessary to ensure the continued collection, analysis, and provision of vital biodiversity data.
Key changes:
These changes will include an increase in charges, and adjustments to our pricing structure, which remained mostly constant over the past few years. However, TVERC remains committed to maintaining a fast, efficient service. Standard searches will continue to be completed within 3 working days. For those needing quicker results, our fast-track service guarantees results by the next working day, and our ultrafast service provides results on the same working day (guaranteed only for non-complex data search requests received by 12 noon). We will also continue to offer discounted rates or waive the fees when the data is used for conservation purposes.
New features:
Based on your feedback, we've simplifying the data search request form, and are introducing a new standard biodiversity report offering a comprehensive 2km search for Species, Sites and Priority Habitat package. This report offers greater value and a more holistic view of the data, benefiting users in their research, planning and conservation efforts. Additionally, a new one-page summary sheet will be included in any data search report, summarising the findings of your search. This can be easily shared and published to confirm a data search report has been obtained from TVERC.
We believe the new adjustments will better reflect the true cost and value of our services, ensuring we can continue to support our users effectively. We appreciate your understanding and support as we implement these changes. If you have any questions or need further information, please do not hesitate to get in touch (tverc@oxfordshire.gov.uk).
The new charges can be found below. From the 1st April you will find the updated charges on our Data Search Charges page, or you can use our Cost Calculator to check estimated price of specific combinations of data. In addition to the dataset fees shown below, there is a £75 base fee for all data searches.
| Search type | (£) |
|---|---|
| Biodiversity Report (2km data search including Species/ Sites/ S41 Priority Habitats |
225 |
| Householder Report (200m data search including records and map of species affected by minor development: House Martin, House Sparrow, Starling, Barn Swallow, Great Crested Newt or Badgers) |
90 |
| Neighbourhood ( a data search including species and Local Wildlife Sites map in the area) |
90 |
| Search type | 1 km (£) | 2 km (£) | 5 km (£) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Species |
85 |
105 |
165 |
| Sites |
85 |
105 |
165 |
| Habitats |
85 |
105 |
165 |
| Single taxon |
40 |
65 |
85 |
| GCN package |
120 |
150 |
|
| Swift package |
120 |
150 |
|
| Ancient woodland |
30 |
35 |
45 |
| Flood zones |
30 |
35 |
45 |
| NRN Oxfordshire |
30 |
35 |
45 |
Why request data from TVERC?
Fundamental to the conservation of biodiversity is evidence. Knowing where species and habitats are, and how that’s changed over time, helps inform where best to create and manage habitats to restore nature, how to ensure species are protected from the impacts of development, or what steps to take to prevent future declines. With over 4.9 million species records, extensive data on habitats and information about Local Wildlife and Geological site, TVERC is a data hub for Oxfordshire and Berkshire, providing this critical information to local decision-makers. You can find out more about TVERC data here.
The data TVERC hold in our database takes time to collect and manage. This work is carried out by both volunteers and paid staff to ensure the data we hold and provide to you is of a high quality and we can keep our charges as low as possible. TVERC charges for the time involved in managing, processing, and extracting the data and producing presentable results and not for the data itself. You can find out more about our data charging policy here.
If you have any suggestions of things you'd like to see included in these, we encourage you to get in touch (tverc@oxfordshire.gov.uk).