135 - Dorset Heaths : Analysis: Ecosystem Services

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Livestock production
• Arable production
• Some watercress beds west of Wareham
• Shell and inshore fishery
• Bee keeping

State – Livestock production remains the mainstay of agricultural activity across the area with a trend in recent years away from dairy towards beef. Some arable production, particularly of maize, tends to be associated with cattle enterprises.

Recently a small but significant area of the Frome catchment has been devoted to field scale horticulture. Near to the conurbation many fields previously used for traditional agriculture have been split into paddocks for recreational horse ownership and use by riding stables.

Poole harbour supports a regionally important shellfish industry as well as a small inshore fleet. The Harbour is also an important nursery area for commercial fish stocks.

Bee keeping is common on the heathlands.

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – The extent of grazed habitat has almost certainly increased since the 1990s as large areas of heathland have been brought back into active management. However these are very extensively grazed and are not significant producers of food.

Extensive grazing is now a main component of some biodiversity conservation programmes.

In the same period several dairies have closed with the farms often refocusing on beef production. Cattle production is now often supported with maize fodder crops, which result in substantial challenges to the maintenance of soil structure and prevention of soil loss.

Other arable production is small-scale although the production of field-scale salad vegetables in the Frome valley is a recently expanding opportunity. Watercress production is focused on the chalk-fed streams and rivers to the west of Wareham and is in part dependent on maintaining high water quality.

Elements of the shellfish industry are poorly regulated and its impact on the environment consequently difficult to determine or monitor.

Opportunities – There are substantial opportunities for extensive high nature value farming across much of the area, particularly of beef production.

On more intensively managed land there are opportunities both to reduce the external impacts of farm management practices and also to improve opportunities for on-farm biodiversity, in part supported by environmental land management schemes or similar initiatives.

Encourage the application of best practice cultivation techniques and the sympathetic location of fodder crops to enhance and maintain soil quality and minimise the risks of soil erosion and subsequent diffuse pollution.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Food provision
• Regulating soil quality
• Regulating soil erosion
• Regulating water quality
• Regulating water flow
• Sense of place/inspiration
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Woodland
• Around half of this is conifer plantation

State – The area is well wooded (23 per cent woodland coverage).

Several moderately sized conifer plantations were established on the heathlands in the mid-20th century being one of the few viable commercial uses for the very poor soils at the time. In many cases the coups (sections of woodland) have now been through one complete forest rotation and in a few cases two.

Economic returns are often marginal and experience has demonstrated that heathland can quickly re-establish once the conifers are removed.

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – The dominant commercial species is Corsican pine which is no longer being replanted due to disease pressure from red band needle blight.

The commercial returns from forestry have often been tenuous but in recent decades the forests have become valued recreational assets. In the last twenty years some areas have not been replanted after felling in order to increase the area of heathland, which regenerates easily once the trees are removed.

Opportunities – There are very substantial opportunities to further increase the area of internationally important heathland following the harvesting of timber, and not replanting conifer plantation.

There are limited, but available, opportunities for creating new woodland without prejudicing the biodiversity resource, especially in some of the river valleys where there is the potential to simultaneously improve water quality.

Realising these opportunities may reduce food production.

The forests also have the potential to be further developed as recreation destinations.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Timber provision
• Regulating water quality
• Sense of place/inspiration
• Tranquillity
• Recreation
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Chalk aquifer in the north and west of the area
• Rivers

State – Most of the public water supply in this NCA originates ‘upstream’ in the chalk downs that overlook this landscape.

The north of the NCA and the far west are underlain by Chalk which is a good groundwater aquifer exploited for public water supply. However, where the Chalk is covered by a significant thickness of Palaeogene clay downstream around Wareham and along the lower Stour, the aquifer is poor being isolated from river water and rainfall infiltration (Dorset Stour Catchment Abstraction Management Strategy, Environment Agency, 2004).

In a dry year both arable and grass production can be limited by water availability on the mostly free draining soils.

All groundwater sources within the NCA are classified as having ‘no water available’ as are all the rivers other than the Frome.

Main beneficiary – Local

Analysis – Currently cultivation techniques generally do not encourage infiltration and water tends to run off quickly to rivers, carrying away sediment and nutrients.

Chalk spring flows contribute to a significant portion of river flows, particularly in the summer months. The depletion of these springs due to abstractions for public water supply is a concern. Reduced water levels in ecologically sensitive watercourses, particularly chalk streams and rivers, can result in increased water temperatures and decreased amounts of available dissolved oxygen.

While most of the water for public supply comes from outside of the area, increases in the area of developed land invariably increases demand for water, some from local supplies, and decreases the area of permeable land allowing local aquifer recharge.

Opportunities – Encourage changes in cultivation practice including techniques such as winter cover crops, contour cultivation and leaving rough cultivated surfaces to reduce run-off rates and increase infiltration.

Action to reduce demand would ease pressure on supplies that, in some case, are already fully exploited in dry years.

Encourage the incorporation of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) into all new developments.

Identify opportunities for ensuring that sufficient water levels are maintained in ecologically sensitive and important streams and rivers.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Water availability
• Regulating water flow
• Regulating water quality
• Regulating soil erosion
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Native livestock breeds include the Dorset horn and poll Dorset sheep
• Extensive areas of semi-natural habitat

State – The use of traditional breed livestock has increased in recent decades and, subject to the interplay between conservation policy and market demands, may continue to increase.

The areas of semi-natural habitat contain populations of plants such as bog myrtle that has medicinal properties. The main botanical components of the foremost habitats are now either stable or increasing.

Main beneficiary – National

Analysis – The developing understanding of good management is creating an opportunity for the use of traditional livestock breeds such as Devon red and British white cattle and Exmoor ponies which thrive more readily in the lower productivity environments.

The main semi-natural habitats are well- protected and mostly now well-managed.

Opportunities – Further develop the use of rare breeds of livestock including potentially seeking premium markets for the final produce.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Genetic diversity
• Food provision
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Woodland
• Some arable crops, such as maize

State – Woodland cover of 23 cent woodland.

Repeated attempts over more than a decade to make more commercial use of low-value timber and arisings have largely failed to find a commercially viable solution. One exception is the Holme Estate who have successfully designed and installed a small district heating scheme fed by local timber.

Some farmers are in the early stages of experimenting with biomass digesters fuelled with, for example, maize. There may be scope to co-fire these facilities with amenity grass cuttings resulting from the longer cutting intervals needed to improve the wildlife outputs from amenity grass.

Main beneficiary – Local

Analysis – The necessary capital investment, logistics expertise and apparent inability of most available burners to cope with highly varied source material have been significant barriers. These difficulties combined with uncertainty about costs, prices and raw material availability makes it difficult to establish a trusting (and functioning) supply chain.

Maize is a challenging crop to grow in an environmentally benign manner especially on the highly erodible soils typical of the NCA. An expansion of maize cultivation unless accompanied by the highest standards of soil husbandry are likely to be a potential source of silt and phosphorus (especially) in the river systems.

Opportunities – There is scope to better use low- value timber and forestry arisings both from the commercial forest and from activities necessary for the management of open habitats like heathland. This presents an opportunity to use material which is presently regarded as waste and often presents disposal problems.

Encourage the development of new uses and markets that would result in a return to active management of some presently neglected woods.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Biomass energy
• Biodiversity
• Sense of place/inspiration

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Soils
• Woodland
• Reedbeds, salt marsh, mudflats and sand dunes
• Heathland
• Permanent and flood plain pasture

State – In the east of the NCA there are areas with high carbon content in the surface soil layers (20-50 per cent). They are regionally significant, reflecting areas of existing or past heathland.

These further reflect areas of the naturally wet very acid sandy and loamy soils (38 per cent of the area), the freely draining very acid sandy and loamy soils (15 per cent) and the loamy and sandy soils with naturally high groundwater and a peaty surface (5 per cent) which typically have or include organic or peaty topsoils and are important for carbon storage.

Many of the loamy/sandy soils with a peaty surface comprise thin remnants of former peat coverings which have oxidised away as a result of drainage and cultivation, although some pockets of deeper peats remain.

Some of the loamy and clayey flood plain soils with naturally high groundwater (6 per cent) are also peaty at depth or include small areas of peaty soils, providing a further store of carbon.

The majority of the wider NCA is nevertheless classed as having a soil carbon content of 0.5 per cent.

Around a third of the area’s soils are mineral soils that can be low in organic matter where under continuous arable cultivation.

Salt marsh is recognised as being an important carbon store.

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – Many of the important assets are presently in fair condition but care is needed.

The heathland bogs and mires could be susceptible to drying if rainfall patterns change substantially.

The salt marshes and other coastal fringe habitats are vulnerable to sea level rise and, especially in Poole Harbour, to trampling damage by high populations of sika deer.

Many of the assets that are good at storing carbon in this landscape are relatively intact. The way in which carbon is stored in land presently used for commercial conifer forest will change, from predominantly above ground to predominantly below ground, if the land cover changes to heathland. However it is unclear that there will be significant permanent detriment to the carbon storage ability of the landscape.

Opportunities – In locations with peat-based soils priority should be given to securing and maintaining groundwater levels that keep the peat wet and prevent it drying out and oxidising.

Some landowners are co-operating to bring down the deer numbers and this work is beginning to have a positive impact in some parts of Poole Harbour.

Work, led by the Environment Agency, is already underway to implement a mitigation strategy to ensure no net loss of salt marsh in Poole Harbour in the face of expected sea level rise.

Carbon sequestration can be increased in mineral soils by increasing organic matter inputs and by reducing the frequency/area of cultivation.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Climate regulation
• Regulating soil quality
• Timber provision
• Food provision
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Shallow sheltered micro-tidal harbours sometimes fringed with salt marsh
• Open coast of historically highly mobile sandy beaches

State – Within the harbours much of the foreshore is composed of sheltered natural beaches or salt marsh. Both of these provide some protection from the eroding effects of wave action. In some locations (for example at Poole) the harbour is delineated by ‘hard’ engineered defences.

On the open coast, mobile sandy beaches predominate. At Studland these still function more naturally (being only ‘protected’, in part, by the off shore ‘training bank)’ but to the east of Poole Harbour entrance management interventions are significant with a combination of beach recharge, groynes to limit longshore drift and hard defences backing the beaches, for example along Bournemouth seafront. This combination has largely halted erosion of the cliffs behind the beach which would, historically, have been a source of new sediment for natural beach recharge.

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – The Poole and Christchurch Bays Shoreline Management Plan5 is designed to equip the area to cope with both expected sea level rise and potential increases in storminess. It envisages a variety of responses from ‘hold the line’ on the more heavily developed and defended parts of the coast to ‘managed realignment’ where the protected assets are mainly agricultural and nature conservation.

Depending on the level of investment in each scheme there is the potential to return parts of the coast to a much more naturally functioning state, potentially improving existing nature conservation assets

Where the existing line is to be defended there is the potential, if sea levels rise, to see the extent of beach and salt marsh habitat (and the protection it offers to the engineered defences) squeezed. It is intended that future realignments will mitigate for these losses by creating new estuarine habitat.

Opportunities – Managed realignment of failing historic defences around the undeveloped margins of Poole Harbour provides a significant opportunity to both extend the area of salt marsh and mudflat and to return these parts of the harbour to a more naturally functioning state.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Regulating coastal erosion and flooding
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Semi-natural habitats
• Rivers
• Permeable soils

State – For information regarding the current state of water quality within this NCA, refer to the Environment Agency (Draft river basin management plan maps).

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – Work has been progressing for many years in response to a variety of policy drivers and using funding from the water company periodic review (of assets) process to reduce the amount of point source nutrient entering local watercourses both by improving the performance of sewage treatment works and by moving untreated waste water from properties onto the public sewerage network.

Similarly advice and grant packages have been in use to encourage greater awareness of the importance and impact of diffuse and point source water pollution among farmers and to encourage techniques to avoid this risk. While there has clearly been progress there is a multi decadal lag in the environmental response to some initiatives.

Some work to improve water quality awareness in industrial estate operators has taken place.

Opportunities – Increase the amount of farmland in and upstream of this NCA managed under principles established by the Catchment Sensitive Farming initiative or its water company equivalent.

Work with water companies to investigate and implement innovative solutions to point source pollution and untreated waste water.

Identify locations where buffering watercourses with semi-natural vegetation could help intercept diffuse pollution and silt from cross- groundwater flows.

Continue and increase public and industry awareness of the danger of allowing contaminated material into surface water drains.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Regulating water quality
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Rivers approaching their estuaries
• Permeable soils
• Rough ground and semi-natural vegetation

State – Some built properties (especially at Iford, Longham and around Wareham) and much pasture is threatened by flooding at times of high river flow. This effect is exacerbated when the rivers become tidally locked and this problem is expected to get worse as sea levels rise.

The Bourne Stream, with its very developed catchment, is especially prone to flash flooding.

Low flows can lead to increased concentrations of pollutants and low levels of dissolved oxygen in drought years with detrimental effects for river ecology.

Main beneficiary – Local

Analysis – There has been relatively little flood plain development meaning that the NCA as a whole is resilient in the face of fluvial flooding. This situation may change if river flood flows become increasingly locked by rising sea levels threatening increasing numbers of properties around, especially Wareham and Christchurch.

Opportunities – The relatively undeveloped nature of the flood plains provides opportunities to experiment with reducing the frequency of river management interventions and returning to more naturally functioning rivers and flood plains. Small scale work to this end has been happening for some years already.

There are opportunities to reduce flooding by increasing storage on the flood plain upstream of Bournemouth and Christchurch; investigate ways to encourage the flood plain to retain more water; investigate the potential benefits that creating wetlands could bring; ensure the flood plain remains free from inappropriate development; and promote land use management initiatives, which reduce the rapid run-off of rainfall in the middle Stour catchment.

Explore and where appropriate implement water retention measures to help maintain water levels in rivers during periods of drought.

Where relevant all new development should incorporate SUDS.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Regulating water flow
• Regulating water quality
• Biodiversity
• Sense of place/inspiration
• Recreation

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

There are 9 main soilscape types in this NCA:

• Naturally wet very acid sandy and loamy soils, covering 38 per cent;
• Freely draining slightly acid loamy soils (18 per cent);
• Freely draining very acid sandy and loamy soils (15 per cent);
• Slowly permeable seasonally wet slightly acid but base-rich loamy and clayey soils (9 per cent);
• Loamy and clayey flood plain soils with naturally high groundwater (6 per cent);
• Loamy and sandy soils with naturally high groundwater and a peaty surface (5 per cent);
• Slightly acid loamy and clayey soils with impeded drainage (4 per cent);
• Loamy soils with naturally high groundwater (2 per cent);
• Freely draining slightly acid but base-rich soils (1 per cent).

State – The naturally wet very acid sandy and loamy soils (38 per cent) can have a weak structure but are easily worked; topsoil compaction can occur as well as cultivation pans.

The freely draining slightly acid loamy soils may be valuable for aquifer recharge, requiring the maintenance of good structural conditions to aid water infiltration and requiring the matching of nutrients to needs to prevent pollution of the underlying aquifer. These soils have potential for increased organic matter levels through management interventions.

The freely draining very acid sandy and loamy soils are generally easily worked though they are inherently infertile and some soils are susceptible to poaching.

Much of the soil within the NCA is in reasonably stable equilibrium, under permanent vegetation, or permanently sealed under development.

Main beneficiary – Local

Analysis – Over much of the NCA soil quality is reasonably well protected under permanent or near permanent vegetation.

Where cultivation occurs it has the clear potential to lead to the rapid oxidation of organic matter leaving the resulting soil friable and susceptible to erosion. Pasture soils can also be vulnerable if very heavily grazed and poached or left without their protective layer of vegetation. Where cultivation is practiced the soils are vulnerable and a range of techniques are needed if they are to be protected.

Various initiatives (for example Catchment Sensitive Farming and Soils for Profit) in recent years have helped to highlight the potential of such techniques as organic matter additions and winter cover crops in protecting and building soil quality

Opportunities – Continue to apply the principles and best practices employed through initiatives such as Catchment Sensitive Farming and Soils for Profit.

Identify areas where soils are most at risk of damage from cultivation and work with landowners and farmers to adopt sensitive soil management practices.

Work with landowners and farmers to identify areas at risk from poaching by livestock and calculate and adopt appropriate stocking rates in response.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Regulating soil quality
• Regulating water quality
• Water availability
• Climate regulation
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Soils
• Permanent vegetation
• Semi-natural habitats

State – The majority of soils covering the NCA (81 per cent) are at some risk of erosion.

Wind erosion affects the naturally wet very acid sandy and loamy soils (38 per cent), some of which are also easily eroded if heavily trafficked or after heavy rain. Similarly affected are the loamy and sandy soils with naturally high groundwater and a peaty surface (5 per cent), which are also at risk from peat erosion and carbon loss through peat wastage.

The freely draining very acid sandy and loamy soils (15 per cent) can erode easily where vegetation is removed, and steep slopes can increase erosion risk on light-textured soils where there will be rapid run-off during storm events.

The freely draining slightly acid loamy soils (18 per cent) also have enhanced risk of soil erosion on moderately or steeply sloping land where cultivated or bare soil is exposed, exacerbated where organic matter levels are low following continuous arable cultivation or where soils are compacted. There is also the potential for wind erosion on some coarse textured cultivated variants.

Many of the slightly acid loamy and clayey soils with impeded drainage (4 per cent) are prone to capping and slaking, leading to increased risk of erosion. These soils are easily compacted by machinery or livestock if accessed when wet, increasing the risks of soil erosion by surface water run-off, especially on steeper slopes.

The slowly permeable seasonally wet slightly acid but base-rich loamy and clayey soils (9 per cent) and the loamy and clayey flood plain soils with naturally high groundwater (6 per cent) have a low erosion risk; the loamy soils with naturally high groundwater (2 per cent) are also generally at low risk of soil erosion except where coarser textured variants occur on sloping or uneven ground.

The NCA to the west of Poole falls within a priority catchment covering the catchments of the rivers Frome and Piddle. Similarly the Dorset Stour north of Wimborne Minster is also a priority catchment.

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – While much of the area is covered in permanent vegetation that reduces the risk of soil erosion, the existence of pockets of arable cultivation, especially for maize and vegetables, can leave the affected soils vulnerable to erosion as can very high stocking densities.

The rivers within the identified catchment sensitive areas are suffering from high levels of sedimentation as a result of soil erosion resulting from intensive cultivation, including maize production, on moderate to high risk soils on steeper slopes in an area of high rainfall and with cross land flows following preferential pathways including roads and tracks that provide ideal routes
for run-off to enter the watercourses.

Opportunities – Continue to apply and extend the reach of tried and tested techniques for reducing soil erosion that are being promoted among the farming community by projects such as Catchment Sensitive Farming.

Work with farmers and landowners to identify and adopt appropriate stocking levels in areas where soils are prone to poaching.

Introduce or restore areas of semi-natural habitat and reinstate boundary features across slopes and along preferential pathways to help reduce the velocity of cross-land water flow or deflect water flow away from areas of soils prone to erosion.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Regulating soil erosion
• Regulating soil quality
• Regulating water quality
• Biodiversity
• Food provision

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Semi-natural habitat
• Populations of natural (wild) pollinators

State – Extensive areas of semi-natural habitat which support a small honey bee industry.

Oilseed rape is an occasional crop in this NCA which requires pollination but there is little commercially grown fruit and vegetable production for which pollination is an essential service.

Main beneficiary – Local

Analysis – The extent to which many of the heathland blocks are used by commercial bee keepers suggests that the area is unlikely to be short of pollinators.

Opportunities – Any diversification into crops that require insect pollination is unlikely to find lack of pollinators a problem in this landscape, however, further opportunities to increase the connectivity of suitable habitats and increase the network of corridor habitats should be realised.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Pollination
• Food provision

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Areas of semi- natural habitat
• Hedgerows
• Grass margins

State – The habitats in the area support a variety of species, such as beetles and hoverflies, which can be effective in the regulation of populations of pests such as aphids.

Main beneficiary – Local

Analysis – Interstitial habitats provide important over- wintering habitats for beneficial predatory invertebrates (for example ground and rove beetles) that feed on pests. Careful management of agrochemicals (through Integrated pest management approaches) may in some cases remove the requirement for chemical intervention. Financial support for farmers channelled through agri- environment schemes can sometimes fund these habitats in arable areas.

Opportunities – Wild populations of pest predators are likely to be healthy given the extent of semi-natural habitats. The biggest opportunity is likely to be to bring these populations closer to crop pests by extending semi-natural refuges (such as beetle banks) into fields that are regularly cropped.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Pest regulation
• Food provision
• Biodiversity
• Regulating soil erosion

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Expansive areas of semi-natural habitat
• Harbours
• Large conurbation with adjacent beaches

State – The outstanding scenic qualities and natural beauty of parts of the area are recognised in designation as the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

There are expansive areas of semi- natural habitat evocatively captured as Thomas Hardy’s Egdon Heath.

The Dorset Heaths have a strong character defined by their underlying geology. The poor soils have always rendered primary production from the land a challenge over most of the area but this has to an extent ‘protected’ sizeable parts of this landscape from the more intensive management interventions that tend to dominate elsewhere.

The two prominent micro-tidal harbours have an extensive wilderness feel in their more remote parts and important wildlife populations.

Despite being adjacent to the fourteenth largest conurbation in England there are still sections of this landscape that can provide a real sense of remoteness and wilderness.

The urban conurbation with adjacent beaches which are popular tourist attractions in the summer.

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – Development, particularly for new housing has transformed some areas since the Second World War although the pace of this change is now reduced. Elsewhere concerted action is recreating the traditional heathland land cover in such a way as to reconnect previously separated patches. These are now large enough in some places to form micro-wilderness which is rare in much of lowland England.

During a few weeks in the summer the influx of tourists, while hugely significant in economic terms, can seem to overwhelm elements of this landscape with packed beaches and long traffic queues.

Opportunities – The programmes of the last several decades that have started to improve, restore and reconnect previously degraded and neglected habitats have the potential, if continued, to produce further improvements – restoring elements of the landscape and the inspiration it provided to Thomas Hardy only a little more than a century ago.

Work in partnership to deliver the aims and objectives of the Dorset AONB Management Plan.

Work to increase the extent of heathland, mainly from conifer plantation, should release potentially stunning but presently barred or restricted views, such as from the ridge above Briantspuddle to Purbeck and from Colehill to Cranborne Chase.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Sense of place/inspiration
• Sense of history
• Tranquillity
• Recreation

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Semi-natural habitat preserving prehistoric and historic features in the landscape
• Historic settlement patterns still present to the west of Wareham

State – Dominant semi-natural vegetation type is of prehistoric origin in its present form.

While there are extant historic monuments that do retain some of their context (Hengistbury Head, Woolsbarrow Hill Fort, Wareham Walls) much of the easily identified visible history has been lost under more recent land uses.

More recent events are perhaps better represented with, for example, part of a heritage railway (running from Norden to Swanage), the recently opened mineral mining museum and the National Tank Museum at Bovington reflecting the strong military links with the area.

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – Some historic assets are also tourist attractions. Their sympathetic preservation, presentation and use have clear potential to enhance the visitor experience.

While a number of Scheduled Monuments are considered to be at risk in the area, principally by damage from burrowing animals, inappropriate cultivation and scrub encroachment, many on the heathlands are still preserved in what would have been their original historic context.

A number of historic settlements have now been subsumed into the larger conurbation and designated as Conservation Areas. They are considered at risk of losing their identity and historical context.

Opportunities – The protection of heritage assets should be a priority given their relative scarcity.

Incorporate buried and earthwork heritage assets into habitat management and creation plans to ensure compatibly outcomes.

Opportunities should be sought to enhance the setting, interpretation and legibility of the remaining assets.

The restoration and conversion of vernacular buildings should be sympathetic to local distinctiveness and use local materials where possible.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Sense of history
• Sense of place/inspiration
• Recreation
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Heathlands and other semi- natural habitats
• Forestry
• Woodlands
• The coast
• Pastoral river valleys
• Urban greenspaces

State – The tranquillity of this area varies both spatially and temporally with much greater tranquillity away from the conurbation.

The areas of heathland offer both a sense of tranquillity and remoteness, with long, uninterrupted views and a sometimes total lack of visible human activity.

When the army ranges are in operation there is some reduction in tranquillity in the more remote parts of the area.

The areas of forestry and woodland extend over 23 per cent of the NCA offering substantial amounts of tranquil and undisturbed landscape.

Small sections of the coast, mainly at Studland Bay and around the fringes of Pool Harbour, can offer high levels of tranquillity, particularly outside of the tourist season.

The pastoral valleys of the rivers Frome and Piddle, away from the villages and hamlets can offer some tranquillity, particularly where the waterside can be accessed.

Urban greenspaces are valued by many people living and working within the large conurbation, providing a quick ‘escape’ from the noise and bustle of the urban environment.

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – The extensive tracts of both heathland and commercial forest plantations often retain a sense of tranquillity and even wilderness as can parts of Poole Harbour outside of the tourist season. However, increasing levels of tourist interest, some intrusive recreational activities and an increasing local population may challenge and reduce the extent of undisturbed places.

Work to increase the extent of heathland, mainly from conifer plantation may increase the area of perceived ‘wilderness’, but reduce the visual screening from some recreational and commercial activities.

Many of the notable species associated with the heathlands, semi-natural woodlands and coastal fringe habitats are susceptible to disturbance and maintaining levels of tranquillity should be a priority for at least some areas.

Opportunities – Present work to enhance and reconnect adjacent areas of heathland (landscape scale conservation) has the potential to maintain pockets of tranquillity in what will otherwise probably be quite a ‘lively’ area.

Work to identify areas most at risk from seasonal disturbance and put in place measures to help alleviate or disburse people thereby reducing levels of intrusion.

Ensure suitable high-quality greenspace provision is incorporated into all new development, particularly around the fringes of the conurbation.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Tranquillity
• Sense of place/inspiration
• Sense of history
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Two shallow sheltered harbours
• South West Coast Path
• Extensive tracts of public forest estate
• Heathlands
• Public open space and open access
• Local trails
• Three country parks
• Extensive sandy beaches
• Public rights of way network

State – While the most popular venues can become crowded at the height of the visitor season this is seldom to the extent that they are full to capacity.

The harbours are popular with watersports enthusiasts, but also provide opportunities for quiet leisure and recreation, such as birdwatching and painting.

The forests and woodlands are crossed by numerous tracks and rides and where part of the public forest estate, they provide access for walkers, horse riders and cyclists.

Many of the heathlands are designated as open access land, in public ownership or owned by the National Trust and provide a large recreational resource for activities such as walking, running, bird- and wildlife-watching, painting and photography.

There are 724 km of public right of way providing access to much of the rural areas.

There are a number of local trails, for example the Castlemain trailway, linking Poole with the New Forest along a disused railway line, and the Stour Valley Way, and other accessible spaces including three country parks and numerous green spaces in and around the conurbation.

Main beneficiary – National

Analysis – Determined action by the public sector and many voluntary sector organisations who own land in the area have substantially improved access opportunities over a period of several decades.

Increasing interest and increasing access can lead to inappropriate recreational activities and undue pressure on ‘honey- pot’ sites. Balancing recreational demands with suitability and capacity of sites present a problem for future management.

Opportunities – Support research that further clarifies the relationship between recreational use, habitat quality and population health of rare and vulnerable species.

Substantial further opportunities to improve access and recreation provision still exist, for example in the flood plain of the River Stour where it passes across the north of the conurbation; at Upton Country Park which surrounds and lies adjacent to a local authority farm from which the public are excluded and on other privately owned land if they choose to improve recreation opportunities.

New developments should also increase and/or improve local greenspace and the recreational opportunities it provides.

Realise the opportunities for education and awareness-raising with visitors and residents.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Recreation
• Sense of place/inspiration
• Biodiversity

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Internationally important habitats and species assemblages associated with heathland habitats and also with Poole Harbour
• Native broadleaved woodland on acid soils

State – Along with the New Forest this area holds some of the best resource of Atlantic lowland heath in Europe and nationally significant populations of some of the component species for this habitat such as nightjar, sand lizard, ladybird spider and Dorset heath.

Poole Harbour holds nationally significant populations of wintering avocet and black-tailed godwit as well as breeding Mediterranean gull. Some of the Poole Harbour Islands are home to one of the last extant populations of red squirrel in southern England.

Main beneficiary – International

Analysis – The quality and extent of the biodiversity resource associated with the internationally important habitats has tended to improve in recent years. There has been a period of particularly intense activity especially focused on heathland to increase its extent, reduce fragmentation and improve the quality of management.

This improvement in the state of the internationally important habitats has not always been reflected in the wider countryside beyond where, for example, the populations of many farmland bird species have followed the national downward trend and the understory of many woods have been browsed out by years of high sika deer populations.

Recently some greater control of the local deer population has been exerted but there is some way to go before the population is reduced to a level where damage to both habitats and crops ceases.

While many farmers have been enthusiastic adopters of the opportunities made available by agri-environment schemes it is less clear where the changes in farm management practice that seem necessary to revive the fortunes of, for example, farmland birds will come from.

Opportunities – There are further opportunities to improve the management of heathland and extend and rejoin fragments of heath. Realising these opportunities are the subject of ongoing programmes and projects involving the collaboration of multiple partners (Wild Purbeck Nature Improvement Area, Urban WildLink).

Other work is now established to safeguard the future of the intertidal habitats of Poole Harbour in the face of likely sea level rise.

Continue work to control and reduce the population of sika deer in the area and particularly around the most sensitive habitats.

Work to find mechanisms that are attractive to farmers and landowners that serve to improve conditions for on-farm wildlife, particularly farmland birds.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Biodiversity
• Regulating soil quality
• Regulating soil erosion
• Regulating water quality
• Regulating water flow
• Climate regulation

Assets/attributes: main contributors to service –

• Mineral deposits of sand, gravel and ball clay
• Rock exposures at the coast
• Oil deposits in shale
• Coast, estuarine and fluvial geomorphology

State – Seven SSSI have a geological component to their special interest and there are ten local geological sites.

Rock exposures are rare in this area although Poole Bay Cliffs SSSI and Hengistbury Head have nationally important Eocene sedimentary deposits that are rich in fossils.

The geological deposits have been extensively exploited commercially. This is particularly true of ball clay which was mined historically but is now quarried and also of the sands and gravels which are extensively quarried. More recently the area has hosted one of the largest onshore oil and gas fields in the UK.

The geological exposures of Poole Bay cliffs have been subject to concerted management effort by Natural England and local authorities in recent decades to try and maintain their special interest as visible features.

The geomorphological processes at the coast, along the rivers and around Poole Harbour are of note.

Main beneficiary – Regional

Analysis – In previous decades worked out quarries were routinely used as, for example, landfill sites. More recently it has proved possible to use these new manifestations of the local geology for more imaginative purposes to the benefit of both wildlife and people.

Coastal geomorphological processes may be unduly affected by demands for hard, engineered defences in the face of predicted rising sea levels.

Opportunities – Future planning permissions to exploit geological resources should normally only be granted with a clear requirement for after-use that provides for geodiversity and biodiversity conservation and public use.

Subject to protecting essential elements of the built environment, seek to restore or maintain geomorphological processes at the coast and along rivers.

Principal services offered by opportunities –

• Geodiversity
• Biodiversity
• Regulating coastal erosion and flooding
• Regulating water flow
• Regulating soil quality