97 - Arden : 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 and enhance the valuable woodlands, hedgerows, heathlands, distinctive field boundaries and enclosure patterns throughout the NCA, retaining the historic contrast between different areas while balancing the needs for timber, biomass production, climate regulation, biodiversity and recreation.

For example by:

• Managing small woodlands, semi-natural woodland and ancient woodland to maintain pockets of tranquillity and enhance biodiversity value and where appropriate re-plant new locally characteristic woodlands for wood fuel/biomass.
• Managing and maintaining the existing resource of ‘big historic trees’ in urban areas and support schemes to expand urban tree planting to support urban biodiversity and increase sense of place and history.
• Managing hedgerows in traditional local style to enhance landscape character and improve biodiversity value.
• Improving existing fragmented heathlands in southern Arden and Arden Parklands.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Create new networks of woodlands, heathlands and green infrastructure, linking urban areas like Birmingham and Coventry with the wider countryside to increase biodiversity, recreation and the potential for biomass and the regulation of climate.

For example by:

• Expansion of urban tree planting to support urban biodiversity, landscape character and sense of place and history.
• Targeting expansion of woodland for the benefit of biodiversity and landscape, particularly where it can link isolated woodland blocks and increase habitat connectivity.
• Ensuring that the right type of tree is planted in the right location to maximise the benefits for water quality, climate regulation, soil erosion control, tranquillity and sense of place.
• Planting new hedgerows, especially in the north-eastern part of the NCA, using species of local provenance, planting standard hedgerow trees primarily oak, to maintain the distinctive character of the area. Maintain associated grassland buffer strips and improve habitat connectivity, particularly where this can assist in regulating soil erosion.
• Planning and creating new and improved links between urban areas, green belt and the wider countryside or major open spaces within and/or near the conurbation especially in and around Birmingham, Coventry and north Solihull.
• Enhance urban areas and fringes through sympathetic building and landscape design.
• Creating new green infrastructure with associated habitat creation and new public access especially around old mining and quarry sites in the central and north-east areas of the NCA.
• Maintaining and improving the existing rights of way network such as the Heart of England Way, cycle routes and access land.
• Improving links to or within the wider network of canal towpaths such as the Grand Union and Avon Canal walks and cycle routes.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Conserve and enhance Arden’s strong geological, industrial, and cultural resource, to increase public access, enjoyment, recreation and to retain a sense of place and history.

For example by:

• Conserving, enhancing and making accessible the network of geological sites, ensuring the importance of the man-made sites such as disused quarries, road, rail and canal cuttings.
• Widening the understanding of the role of geodiversity in the NCA, in particular, its connection with biodiversity, landscape character, industrial and cultural heritage.
• Conserving and enhancing archaeological features such as moated sites and archaeology associated with the manufacturing and mining industries particularly in relation to the Warwickshire coalfield and the canal network; promote access and awareness.
• Protecting and managing historic wood pasture, parklands and urban parks to conserve significant historic landscapes and important features and habitats such as veteran and urban trees and the associated invertebrate populations.
• Conserving historic farmsteads, the buildings and their surrounding landscapes particularly where new uses are being considered.
• Capitalising on the links made in literature to the Arden landscape, such as links with Shakespear, using this as a tool to promote the conservation and enhancement of the landscape described.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Enhance the value of Arden’s aquatic features such as the characteristic river valleys, meadows and standing water areas like Bittell Reservoirs to increase resource protection, such as regulating soil erosion, soil quality and water quality.

For example by:

• Managing and restoring habitats including floodplain grazing marsh associated with river valleys, particularly the Tame, Blyth and Arrow.
• Reducing sources of diffuse pollution into rivers, particularly in catchments of the Trent, Tame and Blythe and standing open water habitats such as Bittell Reservoirs.
• Continuing to develop the growing nature conservation and recreational resource of old mine and quarry sites such as Hartshill and Alvecote wetlands.