145 - Exmoor : 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: Protect, manage and enhance the landscape of large areas of open, ‘wild’ moorland and Atlantic coast, and deep wooded combes, supporting internationally important habitats and species, helping to regulate water quality and quantity, storing carbon dioxide and protecting soil structure and water resources across the area.

For example by:

• Resisting development that detracts from the ‘wild’, uncluttered, remote and highly distinctive character of much of the area, other than the development, renewal or maintenance of essential utility infrastructure necessary to meet regulatory, health and environmental targets and particularly in relation to water provision and flood management.
• Continuing to realise opportunities to restore, expand and improve links between moorland habitats (blanket bog, purple moor grass and rush pasture, mire and upland heath) achieving a strong and resilient ecological network as demonstrated through the Exmoor Mires initiative.
• Supporting and extending the range of internationally and nationally important assemblages of habitats and species by encouraging responsive and sustainable grazing regimes that improve the condition of vegetation, reduce ‘poaching’ of soils and aid water infiltration.
• Ensuring that moorland swaling (burning) and cutting programmes are sustainably managed and will maintain the open character of the landscape, promote structural and biological diversity as well as avoid loss of peaty soils, while ensuring these practices do not deplete the store of greenhouse gases through soil erosion or oxidation.
• Restoring degraded areas of blanket bog and expanding the area of blanket bog, introducing water management techniques (re-wetting moorland, reducing rapid run-off from over-used tracks, and blocking grips) and maintaining extensive grazing regimes to protect and improve soil structure and carbon storage capacity, and effectively manage water quality, availability and run-off.
• Managing existing broadleaved woodland for the benefit of biodiversity, particularly through the use of traditional woodland management techniques.
• Encouraging, where appropriate, the restoration of conifer plantations, at maturity, to open moorland or broadleaved woodland as appropriate, for the benefit of biodiversity and landscape character and to enhance the resilience of semi-natural habitats to the effects of climate change.
• Restoring planted ancient woodland sites (PAWS) to semi-natural woodland, allowing natural regeneration and encouraging traditional woodland management techniques.
• Restoring or creating wet woodland, where appropriate, along valley and combe sides, and along valley bottoms, particularly where this would reduce soil and nutrient run-off entering watercourses.
• Seeking opportunities to restore rivers to their natural courses where past engineering has taken place. Managing cultivation in vales and adjacent to watercourses to optimism water penetration. Reinstating permanent pasture adjacent to watercourses, through the vales and along narrow valleys.
• Seeking to enhance whole catchment water systems, from high moorland to discharge into the sea, improving water quality ensuring water availability, while reducing flood risk.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Protect and enhance the nationally important, highly distinctive and diverse landscape, the wealth of geodiversity, extreme tranquillity and dark skies, the rich cultural heritage and traditions, and inspirational qualities of the area that contribute to the attraction of the area for leisure, recreational and sporting activities.

For example by:

• Managing and enhancing nationally important and locally characteristic Devonian, Carboniferous and Quaternary geodiversity, especially
  the inland outcrops and coastal exposures, improving access and interpretation where possible.
• Ensuring that the wealth of heritage assets found across the area are protected from inappropriate management activities, and are effectively and traditionally managed where necessary.
• Encouraging access to, interpretation and understanding of heritage assets by all sections of the community to enable better current and future management and planning of the environment. Delivering the purposes of the North Devon AONB and Exmoor National Park to conserve and enhance the natural beauty of the landscape.
• Resisting development in or around the most remote parts of the area that would add to intrusion and increased light pollution. Where new development is appropriate, plan for new and integrated landscapes that are informed by the existing high quality and distinctive landscapes increasing the area and networks of semi-natural habitats.
• Promoting access to the natural environment across the area; making the most natural, historic, inspirational and tranquil places available to all, particularly incorporating sustainable access to and from the South West Coast Path.
• Maintaining the presence of distinctive farmed and wild grazing animals, particularly Exmoor ponies, red deer, Exmoor Horn sheep, and Devon Red and Devon cattle.
• Promoting the careful management of relict orchards around settlements and farmsteads, including replanting using traditional varieties.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Plan for the effects of coastal change, allowing the operation of natural coastal processes and the creation of new habitats to maintain and enhance local coastal landscape character and biodiversity, and improve sustainability of current management practices, while reducing flooding of built areas and valuable productive land.

For example by:

• Providing sufficient room for natural coastal processes to continue (particularly within the bays of Combe Martin, Porlock and Lynmouth, as well as the Taw/Torridge Estuary), with habitats extended and re-created further inland where appropriate.
• Implementing an education programme to explain to local communities and visitors coastal processes and change, and the role natural habitats play in protecting the land from future flooding.
• The expansion of existing habitats and the creation of new ones to include coastal and floodplain grazing marsh, saltmarsh, mudflats and sand dunes, and where possible coastal heath.
• Using sites where past sea level changes are displayed, for example the raised beaches between Croyde and Saunton, and important geomorphological processes, for example the creation of shingle bars and sand dunes to inform and understand future coastal realignment.
• Delivering the purposes of the North Devon AONB and Exmoor National Park to conserve and enhance the natural beauty of the coastal landscape.
• Supporting and developing sustainable economic, tourism opportunities that conserve and enhance the special qualities of the area.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Reinforce the distinctive character of the pastoral and mixed farmed landscape through a continuation of upland and other farming traditions.

For example by:

• Reinforcing the rectilinear pattern of 19th-century beech hedgebank enclosures on the moorland edge and the ancient irregular pattern of fields bounded by hedges and stone walls defining the surrounding farmland, and protecting the open field systems at Braunton Great Field, reinforcing a clear sense of place and sense of history.
• Continuing and reinstating the coppice management and laying of hedgebanks to retain these important landscape features for the future (encouraging coppice residues to be used as a source of low-carbon fuel).
• Ensuring ancient hedgerow trees are retained off of the high moor and a new generation of hedgerow trees selected and protected from hedge- cutting.
• Maintaining the strong pattern of medieval boundaries for their major contribution to the landscape and biodiversity of the area, as well as assisting in the reduction of soil erosion and helping block cross-land movement of soils, nutrients and water.
• Continuing to provide food and support farming at a sustainable level with grazing levels that lead to improved soil quality, reduce soil erosion and benefit biodiversity.
• Increasing the amount of farmland managed under principles established by the Catchment Sensitive Farming initiative.

Additional opportunity 1

Additional opportunity 1: Manage recreational opportunities and improve opportunities to enjoy and understand the landscape, experience the ‘wildness’, inspiration, diversity and remoteness of the area.

For example by:

• Maintaining and improving multi-user links between settlements, both in and near the area, and the open moor, wooded valleys, sheltered vales and the Heritage Coast, utilising and extending the existing network of public rights of way.
• Developing new permissive access to historical sites and other areas of interest as part of a cohesive network of inspiring access provision.
• Promoting sustainable tourism initiatives that target a broad range of visitors and reduce car dependency, accommodating high visitor numbers while conserving the landscape and its inherent tranquillity.

Additional opportunity 2

Additional opportunity 2: Plan for the creation of new landscapes around settlements on the periphery of the area.

For example by:

• Planting new woodland, using native broadleaved species, between and within new developments to filter views and preserve the tranquillity of the area.
• Promoting the use of sustainable building design and construction, using traditional materials and styles wherever possible, incorporating renewable energy generation and water recycling technologies.
• Exploring of the role of short rotation coppice (SRC) and other biomass crops within the framework of new development; keeping fuel sources close to demand.
• Creating reed beds as part of developments to filter potentially polluted water before discharge to river or sea.
• Ensuring access opportunities and provision of natural green spaces, close to where people live, linked to wider multi-modal routes.
• Including school and community food gardens and orchards within the landscape framework and new developments, promoting the use of local Devon/Somerset varieties.