The latest large-scale NVC survey undertaken by TEP, over the 2003 and 2004 seasons, has been to identify and map the vegetation communities across almost 2000 ha of ecologically important sand dune habitat along the Sefton Coast in Merseyside. This nationally and internationally important conservation area was last comprehensively surveyed in 1988. A consortium headed by Sefton Council and English Nature commissioned TEP to undertake survey and provision of an interactive GIS package allowing the present condition of the dunes to be compared with the previous survey. GPS was used to map boundaries of the dune vegetation types and to record vegetation samples and other data.