107 - Cotswolds : 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 and enhance the highly distinctive farmed landscape, retaining the balance between productive arable, pastoral and wooded elements and the open, expansive views particularly from the scarp, high wold and dip slope.

For example by:

• Protecting the contrasts in character between scarp, high wold and dip slope by using their defining characteristics to inform new development, woodland creation initiatives and land management, particularly through the use of agri-environment schemes.
• Identifying key views into and out of the Cotswolds, particularly along the scarp and main settlements such as Stroud, Bath, Cheltenham and Gloucester. Using this to mitigate development in or around these key views which could otherwise be intrusive and increase disturbance. Where new development is appropriate, ensuring that it is integrated into and informed by the existing high quality and distinctive landscapes, increasing the area and networks of semi-natural habitats and avoiding light pollution in areas below the scarp.
• Assisting the maintenance of distinctive farming patterns across the area, in particular grazing, such as with the Cotswold Lion sheep.
• Managing and restoring the nationally important parklands, estate landscapes and ancient orchards, highly characteristic of the south- eastern dip slope, that support a wealth of biodiversity, genetic diversity and pollinating invertebrates, especially where these are vulnerable to changes in agricultural practices.
• Maintaining, enhancing and restoring drystone walls, and the skills to do this, and the resulting field patterns of land use on the high wold, reinforcing a clear sense of place and history and retaining these important landscape features that also provide a rich wildlife habitat.
• Maintaining and reinstating hedgerow management, including laying and coppicing existing hedgerows, and new hedgerow tree planting where appropriate on the dip slope and scarp, to retain these important landscape features for the future and safeguard their role in supporting the biodiversity of the area; assisting in the reduction of soil erosion by slowing cross-land movement of soils, nutrients and water (encouraging coppice residues to be used as a source of low-carbon fuel).

SEO 2

SEO 2: Safeguard and conserve the historic environment, cultural heritage and geodiversity that illustrate the history, evolution, foundations, land use and settlement of the Cotswolds landscape, and allow access to and interpretation of the relationship between natural processes and human influences.

For example by:

• Encouraging arable reversion to grassland and sensitive scrub removal where current land cover and use threaten the integrity of important earthworks and remains, both buried and visible, including Neolithic long barrows and henge monuments, bronze-age round barrows on the high wolds, prominent hill forts on the scarp ridgeline, extensive Roman remains, including villas in the lower valleys, medieval settlements and field systems.
• Maintaining the nucleated settlement pattern of small towns and villages in valleys and at the foot of the scarp along the springline, further characterised by fine churches, country houses and estate villages. Ensuring that the wealth of heritage assets, including above ground and buried archaeological features such as iron-age hill forts, earthwork remains, ridge and furrow patterns, Roman remains, abandoned villages, mills and parks and traditional stone farm buildings found across the area, are protected from inappropriate and damaging activities, and are effectively and traditionally managed where necessary.
• Conserving and interpreting archaeological earthworks and sub-surface archaeology, while recognising the potential for undiscovered remains.
• Using an understanding of the area’s traditional and historical architecture, and its distinct patterns of settlement, to inform the appropriate conservation of historical buildings, and to plan for and inspire any environmentally beneficial new development which makes a positive contribution to local character.
• Restoring and conserving the medieval field patterns, the open commons and piecemeal enclosures strips on the scarp, the large rectilinear fields of the wolds and the smaller enclosed pastoral fields of the valleys and dip slope. Particular attention should be given to the protection and management of the nationally important ridge and furrow patterns
  (for example at Todenham, Chastleton, Weston-sub-Edge and Tysoe), maintaining a sense of history and reinforcing the open vistas and panoramas that give this landscape its distinctive character.
• Maintaining and reinstating management of small woodlands, windbreaks and copses to retain these 19th-century features as an important part of the landscape, seeking opportunities to complement this pattern with new planting, where appropriate, for the benefits this will bring for water regulation, carbon capture and storage, biodiversity and landscape character.
• Conserving and managing historic parklands to retain their important contribution to landscape character, including establishing new generations of trees, appropriate management of ancient and veteran trees and retention of deadwood fauna and flora.
• Promoting access to the natural environment across the area; making the most of natural, historical, inspirational and tranquil places available to all, particularly incorporating sustainable multi-user access to and from the Cotswold Way National Trail and other routes such as the Thames Path.
• Managing and enhancing nationally important and locally characteristic oolitic limestone exposures important for the study and understanding of stratigraphy and palaeontology, especially those created by past quarrying and railway cuttings, and improving access and interpretation where possible.
• Encouraging the continued use of local stone as a building material in existing and new drystone wall field boundaries, new developments and conservation projects to further conserve and enhance the scenic beauty of the area and to provide a rich habitat for a range of wildlife.
• Maintaining the diversity of geology and traditional buildings that contributes to the National Character Area (NCA) by using, promoting and encouraging locally-sourced materials and skills for walling and building repair and construction.
• Ensuring sensitive siting of quarries and consideration of the reopening of delves for the supply of local building stone where appropriate and where this would have a minimal impact on landscape, biodiversity and tranquillity.
• Conserving, managing and enhancing the nationally and locally important geological and geomorphological sites and features which represent the characteristic Jurassic Limestone sequences of the area, many of which are exposures in disused quarries and railway cuttings.
• Seeking to ensure that this resource is available as an accessible scientific and educational resource to study stratigraphy, palaeontology and the relationship between geology, landscape, mineral extraction, industrial history and building stone.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Protect, maintain and expand the distinctive character of the Cotswolds and the network of semi-natural and arable habitats, including limestone grassland, beech woods and wetlands along streams and rivers, to enhance water quality, strengthen ecological and landscape connectivity, support rare species and allow for adaptation to changes in climate.

For example by:

• Protecting species-rich grasslands in favourable condition through extensive grazing, restoring limestone grassland and unimproved pastures across the whole area, and seeking opportunities to expand and buffer the network. Also by providing stepping stones along scarp and river corridors to enhance interconnected grassland habitat networks important for species such as Adonis blue, chalkhill blue and large blue butterflies and bringing additional benefits for soil management and water quality.
• Promoting sustainable farming practices to create a farmed landscape which is more permeable and able to provide for the movement and support of species.
• Protecting and enhancing and seeking to re-introduce sustainable management of ancient woodland across the area and in particular the hanging beech woods associated with the scarp, such as the Cotswold Beechwoods Special Area of Conservation (SAC), aiming to incorporate these into a wider habitat network by looking for opportunities to create a mosaic of habitats with limestone grassland, as well as scrub and field margins, that will help to protect populations of species such as the Duke of Burgundy butterfly.
• Targeted planting of woodland buffers to existing woodland or new woodland copses, and regenerating and restoring existing woodland, informed by strategies such as the Forestry Commission’s ancient woodland opportunity mapping and the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) tree planting guidelines, paying due attention to the open character of the landscape in places such as the high wold and the opportunities presented by valleys and river networks. Seeking opportunities to link woodland with other habitats such as parkland to create functional networks.
• Managing springline habitats, fens, wet flushes, winterbornes and wet meadows such as Middle Barton Fen and the river systems and associated flood plains on the dip slope so that associated biodiversity value, water quality and quantity benefit and carbon capture and storage potential are fully realised.
• Promoting the conservation of farmland birds and arable weeds; ensuring that a network of corridors is provided for the movement of species across farmland; retaining the cultural value of flocking and singing birds.
• Maintaining and improving the quality and expanding a network of integrated public green spaces and rights of way for biodiversity, geodiversity, recreation and health benefits.
• Seeking and realising opportunities to reinstate hedgerows, and hedgerow trees, where they have been lost, especially for the benefit of species such as bats in the Bath and Bradford-on-Avon Bats SAC, butterflies and other invertebrates and farmland birds, and to enhance landscape character.
• Ensuring the reversion of significant areas of arable land on the high wolds, guiding locations according to opportunities to assist biodiversity adaptation to changes in climate; improvements in groundwater quality, and in particular nitrate and phosphate issues; aquifer recharge; and managing grasslands in favourable condition through extensive grazing.
• Managing and restoration of ancient semi-natural beech woodland and small mixed oak woodlands on the scarp and valley slopes and dip slope, exploring coppicing and pollarding as means of increasing management and resilience to changes in climate; expanding and re- linking woodland in selected locations, particularly on scarp and dip slope, to increase the resilience of this habitat to changes in climate and assist in controlling cross-land flows of water and also controlling soil erosion and nutrient leaching.
• Maintaining the intricate rural road network characterised by semi- natural grassland verges and ensuring that verges are sympathetically managed for their biodiversity value.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Safeguard and manage soil and water resources, allowing naturally functioning hydrological processes to maintain water quality and supply; reduce flooding; and manage land to reduce soil erosion and water pollution and to retain and capture carbon.

For example by:

• Continuing to support farming at a sustainable level with grazing and cropping levels that provide food, lead to improved soil quality, reduce soil erosion, benefit biodiversity and reinforce a sense of place and current patterns of land use.
• Increasing the amount of farmland managed under principles established by the Catchment Sensitive Farming programme and the Farmland Bird Initiative and the associated benefits this will bring for water flow management and regulation, water quality, prevention of soil erosion and increased biodiversity.
• Maintaining and restoring hedgerow boundaries characteristic of the valleys and scarp and associated field patterns, especially where these help control cross-land flows, prevent soil erosion and nutrient leaching.
• Creating woodland in appropriate locations to help reduce the impact of flooding and for the benefit of water quality.
• Restoring and enhancing remnant wetland habitats, including springline marsh at the foot of the scarp and rare patches of valley mire and fen meadow in the valley bottoms, for the benefit of flood storage, water quality, landscape diversity and biodiversity.
• Creating grassland buffer strips verges running across slopes to provide a buffer to soil erosion and nutrient run-off in areas of arable production, including the catchments of the River Windrush in the north and the Avon in the south.
• Continuing opportunity to plan for the creation or extension of new broadleaved woodland and grassland habitat mosaics to provide the landscape setting to the main settlements on the periphery of the NCA (Cheltenham, Cirencester, Gloucester, Stroud, Banbury and Bath) to provide robust attractive new landscapes strengthening the ecological network throughout this NCA and adjacent NCAs.
• Enabling the recommendations of relevant implementation measures under the Water Framework Directive and Catchment Flood Management Plans.

Additional opportunity 1

Additional opportunity 1: Manage the recreational and tourism opportunities to enhance enjoyment and understanding of the landscape’s inspirational, diverse, open, tranquil and ‘rural’ qualities.

For example by:

• Maintaining and improving multi-user paths and connectivity between settlements, both within and connecting with those outside the area; the scarp, wooded valleys, parklands and other assets utilising and extending the existing network of public rights of way including links to and from the Cotswold Way National Trail.
• 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.
• Developing multi-user routes and improved route connectivity characterised by good quality surfacing and signage and providing sustainable transport options wherever possible to enable more people of varying abilities to enjoy the natural environment.
• Maintaining the Cotswold Way and Thames Path National Trails and their corridors to the highest standards of management and visitor experience to provide the focus for both environmental connectivity and a corridor of interest of cultural, historic and environmental significance.
• Developing improved interpretation of the rich cultural heritage associated with Cotswold authors, artists and designers who have been inspired by the Cotswold landscape.
• Supporting the role of the Cotswolds Conservation Board’s activities to improve wider partnership in delivery and management across the AONB and the NCA, such as improving access, signage and interpretation to ensure a high-quality visitor experience.

Additional opportunity 2

Additional opportunity 2: Plan for the creation of new landscapes around settlements on the periphery of the area and in appropriate development within the area. Reinforce the existing landscape structure as part of any identified growth of urban areas, hard infrastructure and other settlements, ensuring that quality green infrastructure is incorporated enhancing health, access, recreation, landscape, biodiversity and geodiversity.

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 the role of short rotation coppice and other biomass crops within the framework of new development; keeping fuel sources close to demand.
• Creating reedbeds as part of developments to filter potentially polluted water before it is discharged to rivers.
• Providing access opportunities and natural open 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 Cotswold varieties such as Blenheim Orange apples.
• Ensuring that extensions to settlements, such as residential developments under consideration around Bath, Cirencester, Gloucester, Cheltenham and Banbury, are designed to ensure their visual and functional integration with the surrounding landscape and the existing urban edge. Key views to and from settlements should be retained.
• Providing access to quality green space through well-designed green infrastructure which will benefit health and wellbeing and provide habitat that increases the permeability of the urban landscape to biodiversity.
• Ensuring that new developments provide biodiversity enhancement rather than just mitigation.
• Creating sustainable urban drainage systems and surface water management plans that can create new wetland features close to urban areas and new development, becoming part of a green infrastructure network.
• Conserving the area’s richly varied traditional architecture and farmsteads, vernacular and historical buildings in Cotswold stone, timber framing and deep-red brick, encouraging the use of appropriate styles and locally distinctive materials, ensuring that the repair, restoration and/or conversion of vernacular buildings are carried out with due regard to this historical interest using local and appropriate materials, styles and detailing.