3 - Cheviot Fringe : 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 to secure viable and sustainable farming, strengthening historic landscape character and protecting heritage assets, protecting soils and water quality in the rivers and Fell Sandstone aquifer, supporting the farmland birds and wintering wildfowl that are dependent on this area, and enhancing biodiversity through improved connectivity of semi-natural habitats, creating ecological networks that are resilient to environmental change.

For example by:

• Promoting best practice in soils, nutrient and pesticides management to improve soil quality, increase carbon storage, reduce sedimentation and diffuse pollution of watercourses. This will include livestock management in riparian zones to minimise poaching and soil compaction, reducing the impact of nutrients from arable cultivation through measures such as improving watercourse crossings, pesticide sprayer loading and wash down sites, and introducing sediment ponds and traps. Ensuring good water quality is particularly important in the River Till Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI), and River Tweed Special Area of Conservation (SAC), the River Coquet and Coquet Valley Woodlands SSSI and the Fell Sandstone. Good soil management should also have a positive impact on recharge of the aquifer.
• Improving sustainable use of water, promoting the creation of winter storage reservoirs, and encouraging land management practices that increase infiltration to limit increases in demand for water, such as grassland strips and tree planting along watercourses and re-creation of flood plain grazing marsh.
• Managing and restoring hedgerows, particularly in the vales, to reduce cross-land flows of water during peak floods and create a network across the agricultural landscape which enhances sense of place and creates wildlife corridors, benefiting pollination and pest regulation services.
• Encouraging agricultural practices that support the nationally important farmland bird assemblage found in this area and provide habitats for insects, such as diverse field margins, using wild bird and nectar flower seed mixes, cereal headlands and over-wintered stubbles. This will benefit pollination and pest regulation services.
• Restoring floodplain grazing marsh as part of the flood risk management strategy, providing a valuable habitat which will particularly benefit the wintering wildfowl that roost in the large fields of the Milfield Plain and replacing depleted nutrient-rich alluvial deposits which should improve soil quality.
• Incorporating short rotation coppice into the landscape, particularly along river corridors to connect woodland fragments, stabilise banks, reduce soil erosion and help regulate water flow without damaging semi-natural habitats or sites with high potential for shallow-buried heritage assets or areas of historic field patterns, and with due consideration of the impact on landscape character. Appropriate buffers are likely to be needed adjacent to watercourses (particularly the SSSI/SAC rivers) to reduce the risk of sediment, nutrient and herbicide run-off, particularly during planting and harvesting in winter, and in order to avoid the introduction of non-native species.
• Promoting land management practices that minimise the disturbance and damage to archaeological sites from agricultural practices, particularly around the Milfield Plain which is recognised as a nationally important archaeological landscape.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Manage and enhance the network of streams and rivers, improving water quality, restoring natural river morphology, promoting natural flood management and assisted natural recovery, and extending semi-natural habitat to increase flood storage capacity, protect nationally and internationally important species, create more resilient ecological networks, and strengthen landscape character while ensuring rivers maintain the international recognition they have attracted as important game fisheries.

For example by:

• Ensuring that populations of the European Protected Species and the UK Biodiversity Action Plan species found in the rivers and streams, such as otter, lamprey, Atlantic salmon, water crowfoot and river jelly lichen, are maintained and increased by improving water quality, controlling non-native invasive species and enhancing riparian habitats.
• Improving water quality through encouraging land management practices that reduce diffuse pollution, such as informed infield nutrient application, using crops which require lower applications of fertilisers and pesticides, improving farm infrastructure and waste management, using buffer strips to protect watercourses, and minimising damage to soil structure through the careful timing of activities, using low pressure machinery, managing stock movements and controlling riparian grazing.
• Reconnecting rivers with their natural flood plains where possible, to manage flood risk as detailed in the Catchment Flood Management Plans, improving soil quality by replacing depleted alluvial deposits, and creating important wetland habitats for wildfowl.
• Removing redundant manmade structures that interfere with the dynamic river system, such as weirs, old bridge footings and rock armour, and encouraging the reinstatement of features such as ox-bow lakes. A more natural morphology should stabilise the system, enabling the rivers to absorb more of the water’s energy, thereby mitigating the effects of peak flows, and ensuring the continued presence of important riparian habitats.
• Encouraging well-vegetated banks to reduce soil erosion and provide green corridors.
• Working collaboratively to control invasive non-native species such as Himalayan balsam, giant hogweed, Japanese knotweed and signal crayfish.
• Seeking opportunities to reduce pollution from mine water and industrial discharges to improve the water quality of the watercourses and Fell Sandstone aquifer, restoring quarries to ensure they enhance local landscape character and biodiversity interest while incorporating flood water storage where appropriate.
• Restoring and creating woodland along riverbanks to connect existing fragments, stabilise banks, increase water infiltration and strengthen landscape character. Where appropriate, short rotation coppice could be planted, increasing the area’s biomass provision and providing some of the advantages of semi-natural woodland. Ensuring that fish populations in the rivers Till, Tweed and Coquet continue to attract local people and tourists to these internationally recognised game fisheries without detriment to the designated features and habitats.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Protect, enhance and extend the mosaic of semi-natural habitats, including wet woodland, upland heath, fens, blanket bog and grazing marsh as a way of contributing to ecological networks that are more robust to environmental change, as well as supporting the nationally important farmland bird assemblage found in this NCA, increasing the water and carbon storage capacity of soils, reinforcing landscape character and perceptions of tranquillity, and improving amenity for local communities.

For example by:

• Improving the quality of existing high biodiversity value habitats including designated sites such as Ford Moss SAC, Campfield Kettle Hole SSSI and Barelees Pond SSSI, buffering and expanding them where possible and connecting them to other semi-natural habitats to increase ecological coherence and resilience to environmental change, and to maximise carbon sequestration and water retention.
• Restoring and creating high biodiversity value habitat to enhance habitat networks, link existing sites and increase the heterogeneity of the area. In particular, the naturalising of river morphology will provide opportunities for the restoration of habitats such as wet grassland and wet woodland; and the restoration of sand and gravel quarries will present opportunities for extensive habitat creation and management, both between quarry sites and creating connections into the wider landscape.
• Managing existing woodlands to improve age structure and diversity, taking opportunities to diversify coniferous plantations with broadleaved planting, and re-planting woodlands on former woodland sites or adjacent to existing semi-natural ancient woodland sites, particularly along rivers and streams. This will enhance ecological connectivity and function, improve carbon sequestration, enhance biodiversity, and potentially provide sources of wood fuel, as well as contributing to the perception of tranquillity and providing new access opportunities where appropriate. In areas buffering red squirrel populations, the clear-felling of large conifer blocks and planting of large-seeded deciduous species should be avoided.
• Promoting agri-environment schemes and other mechanisms to encourage the restoration and expansion of networks of hedgerows, arable margins, road verges and unimproved grassland to support farmland birds, pollinators and pest regulators, improve the permeability of the agricultural landscape for wildlife, reduce cross-land water flows and reinforce landscape character.
• Identifying opportunities to enhance the existing rights of way network and encourage increased access to the natural environment. Semi-natural habitats and the species they support offer opportunities for education and recreation, contributing to a sense of place and perceptions of tranquillity.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Protect and sustainably manage the wealth of geodiversity and heritage assets, such as the nationally important glacial and archaeological landscape of the Milfield Plain; recognising the value they provide in contributing to our understanding of the landscape and its history, local distinctiveness and sense of place, and promoting knowledge and understanding of these important resources.

For example by:

• Raising awareness of the important role that glacial processes have played in shaping the landscape by improving access to and interpretation of sites and developing opportunities for earth science research to extend the understanding of the geomorphological processes.
• Ensuring that future development and extraction do not remove possible key sites and sections with the potential to lead to greater understanding of ice sheet behaviour in the region, such as the Milfield Fan. Taking opportunities arising from sand, gravel and stone extraction to record temporary sections and retain permanent geological sections through the restoration process, where appropriate.
• Utilising opportunities to unearth research and preserve a wealth of archaeological artefacts revealed through mineral extraction, such as in the Milfield Plain, and ensuring that these valuable assets are protected for future generations.
• Conserving archaeological earthworks and sub-surface archaeology, while recognising the potential for undiscovered remains, through the employment of land management practices that minimise disturbance and damage from cultivation such as controlling scrub, minimising the use of heavy vehicles, taking archaeological features out of cultivation and encouraging arable reversion where possible.
• Improving access to and interpretation of the wealth of archaeology, above-ground features and battlefields in the area, promoting the use of these resources for education, research and tourism, and encouraging local communities to connect with and explore their heritage.
• Ensuring that new developments respect historic settlement patterns and features, including traditional farmsteads and buildings, and are in keeping with the local vernacular, addressing the decline of historic buildings by repairing and restoring them using traditional materials and styles.
• Strengthening historic field patterns through hedgerow restoration and management, contributing to the network of wildlife corridors and other ecosystem services.
• Removing redundant modern vertical structures to reinforce open views, landscape character and perceptions of tranquillity.
• Conserving and managing historic parklands, including establishing new generations of trees in a way that is sensitive to their historic character, appropriately managing ancient and veteran trees and retaining deadwood fauna and flora, and where possible improving public access to increase understanding and amenity.