88 - Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands : Detailed Statements of Environmental Opportunity

This section expands on the Headline Statements of Environmental Opportunity and provides further detail on each of the Statements of Environmental Opportunity.

SEO 1

SEO 1: Maintain and manage a sustainable and productive claylands arable landscape, while managing, expanding and linking woodlands, hedgerows and other semi-natural habitats to benefit biodiversity, improve soil and water quality, and ameliorate climate change by promoting good agricultural practice.

For example by:

• Managing the arable landscape to retain the value of food provision through employing sustainable farming practices.
• Working with local farmers, landowners and managers to promote best practice such as the appropriate management of hedgerows, reducing herbicide and pesticide use, buffering field margins and woodland edges, and retaining winter stubble to support farmland birds and pollinators.
• Promoting good soil management to avoid compaction and maintain good soil structure.
• Encouraging the conservation and management of existing woodlands and the replacing of introduced species with native species, as well as undertaking new tree and woodland planting to link existing sites in order to enhance biodiversity and recreational opportunities.
• Seeking opportunities to develop biomass production through active woodland management and promote and stimulate local markets for wood products, biomass and wood fuel to support sustainable timber production.
• Ensuring that populations of wild deer are managed to reduce damage caused to the natural regeneration of trees and woodland.
• Preparing and implementing plans to control or limit the spread of new pests or disease – for example, ash die-back.
• Extending where appropriate the semi-natural vegetation cover, especially on steeper slopes where the Bedfordshire and
  Cambridgeshire Claylands National Character Area (NCA) meets the Bedfordshire Greensand Ridge, Chilterns, and East Anglian Chalk NCAs, to improve soil quality and reduce run-off and erosion.
• Enhancing and expanding the network of semi-natural habitats through targeted environmental enhancements, including ponds, hedgerows, hedgerow trees and species-rich grasslands (such as areas found along road verges, green lanes and field margins) to support biodiversity.
• Encouraging the appropriate management and expansion of traditional orchards, bringing them back into active management to conserve their genetic diversity, biodiversity value and cultural heritage; and promoting and encouraging local markets for locally grown orchard produce.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Protect aquifers and enhance the quality, state and structure of the River Great Ouse, its valley and tributaries, habitats, waterbodies and flood plain by seeking to enhance their ecological, historical and recreational importance while taking into account their contribution to sense of place and regulating water flow, quality and availability.

For example by:

• Promoting and encouraging the sustainable use of local water resources by agricultural, commercial and domestic users to reduce the pressure on water resources in this NCA.
• Ensuring that water abstraction and poor water quality do not threaten important wetland habitats and archaeological features.
• Monitoring and managing water abstraction licences, with new applications for groundwater abstraction considered on a case-by-case basis to reduce the pressure on the aquifers.
• Incorporating and encouraging the use of water efficiency measures in new developments.
• Implementing catchment-wide water management plans to ensure a co- ordinated approach to reducing the impacts of pollution on water quality.
• Encouraging the use of sustainable drainage schemes, especially within urban areas to reduce run-off.
• Promoting and encouraging different remedies to improve water quality (for example, increasing on-farm water storage to reduce water abstraction levels, increasing flow rates and water levels in rivers, and continuing to make improvements to wastewater treatment works), to benefit aquatic biodiversity.
• Encouraging landowners and managers to increase and link areas of semi-natural habitat -such as flood plain grazing marsh, lowland meadow, ponds, fen and reedbed – to help slow water passage and filter out pollutants and support biodiversity.
• Working to reduce surface and groundwater pollution at a catchment scale by managing farmland under the principles established by the Catchment Sensitive Farming Programme.
• Expanding buffer strips along watercourses to help filter out sediments and pollution and provide benefits for landscape character and biodiversity.
• Working with landowners and managers to encourage the appropriate management of rivers, streams, waterbodies and riparian habitats to support biodiversity.
• Managing vegetation within the catchment to help to bind the soil, thus reducing the risk of erosion and slowing the passage of water.
• Seeking opportunities to extend and link areas of woodland, hedgerows, grassland and other semi-natural habitats to assist in absorbing water flow and provide benefits for biodiversity.
• Seeking opportunities to increase the capacity of the flood plain, conserve and extend riparian habitats to retain water, and bring benefit to the river environment.
• Promoting green infrastructure to help mitigate the impact of flooding.
• Encouraging the use of sustainable urban drainage systems such as permeable surfacing within urban areas to help reduce run-off.
• Controlling, monitoring and managing invasive non-native species to prevent or reduce damage to native species populations and habitats.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Plan and create high-quality green infrastructure to help accommodate growth and expansion, linking and enhancing existing semi-natural habitats. Regenerate the post-industrial landscapes of the Forest of Marston Vale and Peterborough to improve and create new opportunities for biodiversity, recreation, timber and biomass provision while strengthening sense of place, tranquillity, resilience to climate change, and people’s health and wellbeing.

For example by:

• Supporting the creation and expansion of native woodlands, orchard, parkland, grasslands, and hedgerows to improve habitat connectivity within the landscape and provide increased benefits for biodiversity and recreation.
• Ensuring that areas of designated land remain in favourable condition, and improving their condition where possible.
• Promoting awareness of, and providing advice to landowners and managers on, managing habitats of biodiversity interest.
• Supporting initiatives that include well-planned green infrastructure that will increase people’s access to and contact with the natural environment to benefit their health and wellbeing.
• Creating new woodland as appropriate on urban fringes to help screen and integrate new developments, and provide biodiversity and green infrastructure benefits.
• Managing recreational sites to accommodate visitor pressure and demand without conflict between different users, and without causing adverse effects on the natural environment.
• Maintaining, extending and promoting the use of the National Cycle Routes and the rights-of-way network.
• Conserving and managing traditional orchards, hedgerows, parkland, and ancient and veteran trees for the benefit of fauna (such as specialist invertebrates dependent on dead or decaying wood, pollinators and pest regulators).
• Protecting and conserving existing traditional orchards from inappropriate development and changes in land use.
• Retaining and enhancing the contrast in landscape character between the clay plateau and river valleys, aiming to maintain and enhance the balance between urban and rural landscapes.
• Preventing inappropriate development and promoting the use of local building stone to maintain the character of villages and historic buildings.
• Ensuring that any new developments incorporate well-designed green infrastructure, to include improved access and recreation opportunities for local communities and visitors.
• Supporting the work of the Forest of Marston Vale Community Forest to regenerate the area and repair the landscape, using trees and woodland to provide social, economic and environmental benefits.
• Supporting the work of the Chilterns Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) to conserve and enhance the landscape and special qualities of the AONB.
• Ensuring that geodiversity sites continue to be protected, monitored and managed.
• Ensuring that mineral extraction sites are restored to contribute to local landscape character and offer opportunities to enrich people’s understanding of landscape, and enhance biodiversity, recreation and geodiversity.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Protect, conserve and enhance the cultural heritage and tranquillity of the Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands NCA, including its important geodiversity, archaeology, historic houses, parkland, and Second World War and industrial heritage, by improving interpretation and educational opportunities to increase people’s enjoyment and understanding of the landscape.

For example by:

• Promoting awareness and understanding of the area’s rich geological heritage and the impact it has on the landscape, local distinctiveness and human activity – for example, in brick making.
• Ensuring that new development is in keeping with the local character of the area by using local stone in buildings to enhance sense of place and history.
• Promoting the restoration and good management of historic buildings and features, including those that are listed and ‘at risk’.
• Using an understanding of the area’s historic settlements and buildings to promote high-quality design in new development.
• Protecting, managing and promoting important archaeological features and landscapes such as ridge and furrow to increase people’s understanding.
• Conserving and enhancing the cultural heritage of the brick-making industry, the Grand Union Canal and 20th-century military sites by promoting and improving access to increase awareness and understanding.
• Increasing tranquillity by conserving, managing and extending areas of semi-natural habitat, particularly woodlands and hedgerows, to benefit wildlife and people.
• Promoting existing sites that offer opportunities for people to enjoy the local landscape and providing improved interpretation and educational opportunities to increase people’s understanding of the natural and built environments.
• Offering high-quality interpretation at key sites, and providing improved interpretation and educational opportunities to increase people’s understanding and enjoyment of the key attributes of the area such as the history of brick making and jam making.
• Encouraging the restoration and sustainable management of historic parklands.
• Seeking opportunities to protect more tranquil parts of the area to reduce light and noise pollution and seeking opportunities to remove obtrusive features such as signage, lighting and poles.
• Working with local planning authorities to ensure that development is well designed to enhance landscape character and sense of place and to minimise the impacts of noise and light pollution.