55 - Manchester Conurbation : 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: Provide and maintain green infrastructure, including multi-functional green spaces and trees, improving links between habitats as well as creating a high-quality urban environment – to aid adaptation to climate change, to provide opportunities for recreation, and to enable people to enjoy the benefits that access to nature brings.

For example by:

• Safeguarding and enhancing existing green infrastructure, including open spaces (parks, woodlands, informal open spaces, nature reserves, lakes, accessible countryside, the natural elements of historic sites, built conservation areas and civic spaces), linkages (river corridors and canals, pathways, cycle routes and greenways) and networks of ‘urban green’ (the collective resource of private gardens, allotments, pocket parks, street trees, verges and green roofs).
• Planning for significant new green infrastructure provision, in association with areas of new urban development, to expand and link the existing ecological networks with corridors connecting urban areas with the countryside.
• Managing future developments to incorporate green infrastructure, providing access to green spaces of relative tranquillity within towns, cities and the surrounding countryside, building sustainable urban drainage systems and creating new habitats for wildlife.
• Seeking opportunities to ‘retrofit’ green infrastructure into urban areas, to help moderate urban heat, provide permeable surfaces for water infiltration and provide visual interest, as well as creating wildlife habitats.
• Creating new green infrastructure features via development: providing green roofs and street trees, and incorporating opportunities for nesting birds and roosting Considering the reclamation of post-industrial sites where appropriate, to add to and enhance the greenspace network.
• Providing opportunities for people to access urban greenspace in town centres and high-density residential areas: this has multiple benefits including improved health and wellbeing, improved tranquillity, improved quality of environment and better wildlife habitats.
• Protecting the nature conservation interest of the Manchester Conurbation through conserving and enhancing existing habitats such as woodlands and canals.
• Seeking opportunities to encourage urban populations to engage with, learn about and enjoy the natural environment, such as at Local Nature Reserves (LNRs) and country parks.
• Protecting woodlands and trees, including ancient woodlands, and seeking opportunities to create new community woodlands and street trees, particularly in the Red Rose Forest and Pennine Edge Forest: this will help to moderate urban heat, increase the carbon storage potential of the area, provide visual interest and improve wildlife habitats. Making the most of opportunities for renewable heat from wood fuel from woodlands, waste wood and arboricultural work.
• Conserving the Manchester poplar to improve the urban environment, moderate the climate in urban areas, and enhance the urban and historic landscape.
• Developing a strong evidence base, including through research and study initiatives, to inform a greater understanding of the value and functionality of green infrastructure.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Conserve and enhance the cultural heritage and character of the Manchester Conurbation, recognising the industrial and textile history of the area, and providing opportunities for access and interpretation of the urban environment for people to understand and enjoy.

For example by:

• Conserving, managing and interpreting the distinctive industrial heritage and iconic architecture, providing a unique setting for understanding the area’s history and maintaining the character of the area.
• Conserving the area’s cultural identity through providing access to and interpretation of the landscape, so that people can enjoy and learn about its history, geology and features.
• Managing the existing network of public rights of way, cycle routes and towpaths, and improving access by ensuring that paths are maintained, well signposted, and cater for all levels of ability and interest. Linking urban access routes to the wider countryside.
• Ensuring that people have access to greenspace and green routes, reasonably close to where they live, so that communities can connect with their local green spaces, benefiting their health and Providing interpretation for people to understand and enjoy wildlife, and efficiently access key areas such as LNRs and country parks.
• Managing, expanding and connecting pockets of habitat in urban areas – such as rivers, canals, parks and green spaces – conserving their wildlife, historical and geodiversity interest, as well as providing opportunities for people to learn about and enjoy the natural environment.
• Conserving the heritage of the canals, which are so important for wildlife and for recreation.
• Managing existing community woodland and providing new community woodlands and other habitats, to create quiet, tranquil areas for people to Using sensitively designed new planting to assimilate development. Providing multi-purpose community woodland with opportunities for small-scale timber, wood fuel and biomass provision, and enhancing recreation, landscape and biodiversity interests. Conserving trees that are of heritage and cultural value
• Ensuring that significant geological and landform features are recognised and conserved, and that the geological interest of the Manchester Conurbation is promoted and used as an educational resource.
• Providing interpretations of the links between geology, the history of the landscape and wildlife habitats – and the relevance of these to sustainable development – to landowners, industry and the public.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Provide a healthy water environment – with rivers, canals, wetlands, streams and aquifers – creating habitats for wildlife, delivering sustainably managed water and bringing multiple benefits for people.

For example by:

• Maintaining and improving water quality, such as in the rivers and canals, to provide more attractive and accessible water environments for both people and wildlife to enjoy.
• Ensuring that habitats, especially those within developed or residential areas, are under good environmental management, increasing their capacity to retain water, reduce run-off and improve water infiltration.
• Restoring modified river channels where appropriate, and re- establishing strategically important flood plain habitats in green spaces
  – to improve flood management both in and upstream of urban flood zones.
• Creating habitats such as wetlands, woodlands and grasslands, to improve infiltration and increase the capacity to retain water, which also reduces the rate of run-off and captures sediments and contaminants.
• Incorporating sustainable urban drainage systems (such as green roofs, permeable surfaces and open swales) into new and existing development, to improve infiltration and manage surface water.
• Sustaining and increasing urban greenspace and permeable surfaces in town centres and high-density residential areas. This will deliver multiple benefits, including improving flood management both in and upstream of urban flood zones, attenuating storm flows, and aiding the infiltration of rainfall and the filtering of water.
• Promoting opportunities to increase water storage and to alleviate the speed of run-off, through the expansion of wetlands and other habitats (such as reedbeds and wet woodland) in flood plains.
• Managing and enhancing riparian habitats to reduce soil erosion rates, creating permanent grassland or woodland strips to trap sediment run- off before it enters the streams.
• Managing over-abstraction from groundwater, rivers, reservoirs and lakes through the careful and efficient use of water.

SEO 4

SEO 1: Conserve and enhance the river valleys and canals, as corridors through the urban areas, for the multiple benefits that the natural environment provides, to improve the landscape, and to make green spaces available for the benefit of both wildlife and people.

For example by:

• Retaining and managing open countryside and semi-natural habitats along the corridors of the river valleys and canals, protecting the sense of place and enabling people to access and enjoy these areas.
• Safeguarding and managing habitats (including grassland, woodland and wetlands) along river valleys and canal corridors for wildlife. This will enhance local landscapes and will provide multiple benefits including flood management, and opportunities for recreation and community activity.
• Buffering, linking and expanding fragmented habitats such as grasslands, woodlands and wetlands, and creating new woodland and wetland habitats.
• Managing linear routes and ‘stepping stones’ that connect pockets of habitats, especially along river and canal corridors, to provide a
  framework of linked habitats through the urban fabric. This will enable the movement of species as well as creating green routes (such as walking or cycling paths) for people to enjoy.
• Managing and restoring hedges and field boundary trees to link fragmented habitats, provide habitats and corridors for wildlife, enhance local landscapes, act as a windbreak and conserve soils.
• Protecting and enhancing the remaining pockets of farmland through sustainable agricultural practices, and supporting farms to provide habitats for wildlife, reduce soil erosion, improve water quality and enhance the character of the landscape. Providing new educational access through an interpretation of the landscape that promotes the connections between farming, food and the public.
• Encouraging recreational management techniques in the river valleys to avoid compaction, to avoid poaching or puddling soils, to conserve soils, to improve the infiltration of rainwater, to retain soil carbon levels, to reduce soil erosion rates and to minimise the structural deterioration of soil.
• Providing spaces (such as allotments and community gardens) to enable urban communities to enjoy growing food locally, to improve health and wellbeing, and to encourage community cohesion, as well as providing benefits such as new habitats for wildlife.