46 - The Fens : 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: Manage the agricultural landscape and soils which allow the Fens to be a major provider of food and horticultural produce, while seeking to enhance opportunities for biodiversity.

For example by:

• Maintaining the valuable, productive, open agricultural landscape of the Fens National Character Area (NCA) with its high-quality soils, many of which are classed as Grade 1 agricultural land, through sustainable farming and agricultural agreements to the benefit of food production, biodiversity, sense of place and climate change regulation.
• Increasing opportunities to manage and protect the remaining peat resource, for example by raising water levels, to maintain (or enhance where possible) the build-up of organic matter; and encouraging landowners and managers to pursue such activities.
• Encouraging landowners and managers to use sustainable farming methods that protect the soil, such as maintaining vegetative cover and using grass buffer strips to reduce soil erosion from susceptible arable fields in the autumn and winter.
• Encouraging the adoption of good practice to avoid soil compaction and maintain good soil structure.
• Encouraging landowners and managers to manage land to prevent peat from drying out, and to maintain wetted peat soils to reduce loss through compaction, oxidation and wastage.
• For mineral soils in the NCA, promoting management techniques to build up soil organic matter to help maintain and enhance soil quality.
• Encouraging farmers to use techniques such as establishing break crops to manage land and protect soil.
• Encouraging minimum tillage and greater use of organic manures, biosolids and digestates plus soil conditioners, which will help to ameliorate soil losses if pursued on sufficient scale.
• Encouraging the establishment of areas of semi-natural habitat such as reedbed and washland which slow the passage of water through the hydrological system.
• Restoring and managing traditional orchards where there is already a traditional pattern, for example around Wisbech, promoting the planting of new orchards of mixed fruit trees to encourage bees where they are absent, and promoting the expansion of traditional shelterbelts around orchards.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Manage the core wetland complexes and increase their connectivity by enhancing the main rivers, waterways and their associated riparian habitats and improve recreational access opportunities to the Fens.

For example by:

• Promoting the creation and restoration of wetland landscapes through co-ordinated and sensitive management of water resources in conjunction with Fens for the Future partners, including Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs) and the farming community.
• Managing key wetland sites, including Wicken, Woodwalton and Holme Fens, remnants of the original fen, together with the great washlands which will form the core wetland complexes.
• In addition to the existing core areas, developing extensions at Baston Fen, Great Fen and Wicken Fen as envisioned in the Wicken Vision, as well as new areas such as Lakenheath Fen, Needingworth and the Wissey Wetland, to create more and larger areas of wetland habitats.
• Improving the water quality and quantity in water bodies in the Fens and improving their habitat value by creating buffer zones and undertaking habitat enhancement works, and identifying means by which issues including diffuse pollution can be co-operatively tackled, thus making a valuable contribution to outcomes required by the Water Framework Directive.
• Critically assessing the engineered network of ditches, installing new water management mechanisms where necessary, to enable localised management of groundwater.
• Encouraging winter flood storage on appropriate areas of land, ensuring appropriate management and control of any water resource created, in accordance with Water Level Management Plans, promoting the reversion of existing flood-storage washlands to permanent grassland with extensive grazing regimes, and promoting the creation of new multi-functional washlands.
• Ensuring that sustainable flood risk management for the Fens is delivered through close partnerships.
• Promoting and establishing strategic, appropriately sized areas for biodiversity across the Fens to mitigate the impacts of local, summer storm-related catchment flooding, and to develop robust populations.
• Integrating and developing water resource management within flood management works and land management regimes, particularly at break point areas along the edge of the fen.
• Ensuring that the soils remain adequately hydrated to prevent erosion and maintain soil chemistry, especially where these soils could form ochre and become extremely acidic if dried and re-wetted.
• Promoting the creation of permissive and definitive access to increase opportunities for people to visit the Fens using sustainable transport methods; identifying the strategic gaps in the network and providing public transport in association with employment, heritage, education and recreation initiatives for local people and neighbouring towns and cities; and ensuring that existing projects with capacity such as Fens for the Future and the Fens Waterway Link address recreational and access issues.
• Identifying the strategic access gaps in the network and providing public transport in association with employment, heritage, education and recreation initiatives for local people and neighbouring towns and cities.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Plan for the creation of new coastal landscapes in the Wash area that are adapted and resilient to the impact of climate change, for the benefit of people and wildlife.

For example by:

• Seeking opportunities to reinstate intertidal salt marshes through realignment from arable to extensively grazed salt marsh, in line with the Wash Shoreline Management Plan.
• Seeking opportunities to create grazing marsh, reedbed and salt marsh throughout the Fens to compensate for losses of these habitats at the coast as a result of climate change and associated isostatic adjustment-induced sea-level rise, or where work carried out has damaged habitat.
• Seeking opportunities to identify and monitor key coastal active process sites.
• Replacing habitat lost from the coast through the East of England Regional Habitat Creation Programme.
• Planning for provision of permissive and definitive access (including the coastal access path) to increase opportunities for people to visit the Fens using sustainable transport methods.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Conserve, manage and enhance the Fens landscape and increase educational opportunities to access its geodiversity, archaeology and cultural heritage to enhance enjoyment and understanding for those who live and work in and visit the Fens.

For example by:

• Protecting and appropriately managing the historic environment, for its contribution to local character and sense of identity and as a framework for habitat restoration and sustainable development.
• Improving the condition of heritage assets through appropriate measures and seeking to reduce conflicting or unsympathetic management regimes, while recognising the high potential in this landscape for undiscovered remains.
• Providing a wider understanding of the geological record of environmental change held within the peat and associated Quaternary sediments, and supporting demonstration projects and sites that illustrate the cultural history, successional fenland habitats and geodiversity of the Fens.
• Managing and conserving the geological exposures throughout the Fens by the removal of undergrowth and the prevention of fly-tipping on these sites, in addition to identifying and protecting new (key) sites as they are discovered.
• Making links between geodiversity, archaeology and cultural heritage, building towards an integrated approach with the surrounding natural environment/landscapes.
• Conserving and monitoring buried geological and archaeological remains that are under threat through erosion of peat, increased or inappropriate cultivation, drying out from dewatering for irrigation, and pressures from development.
• Conserving historic landmark buildings and earthwork sites together with their setting, especially on the settled fens and clay islands.
• Using understanding of the area’s traditional and historic architecture, and its distinct patterns of settlement, to inform appropriate conservation and use of historic buildings and farmsteads, and to plan for and inspire any environmentally beneficial new development that makes a positive contribution to local character.
• Promoting understanding of the benefits and potential adverse impacts of wind farms and associated electricity transmission pylons, which are an increasing feature of the fenland landscape.

SEO 5

SEO 5: Seek partners to aid in the development and future provision of new, distinctive, Fenland economies.

For example by:

• By promoting fenland cuisine and food preparation using local ingredients.
• Promoting natural art and craft production (such as baskets, woven reed mats, screens and fences for garden or poultry/ animal management purposes) in order to diversify the economic opportunities and output from Fenland resources.