TEP was commissioned to study the spatial relationships between natural environment quality and multiple deprivation. The work consisted of three main stages:
1. Mapping socio-economic deprevation
2. Constructing and mapping a 'natural environment index'
3. Examining spatial relations between socio-economic deprevation and the NEI
The NEI was developed in consultation with a project steering group, developing and applying a similar methodology to the IMD 2004. Bringing together a wide range of data, the NEI assessed environmental quality across 4 domains: resource quality, habitat quality, naturalness and landscape and visual quality. These were then combined to give an overall environmental quality 'score'.
The NEI has been used as part of the evidence base for the North West's emerging Intergrated Regional Strategy (RS2010)