29 - Howardian Hills : 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 wooded character of the NCA and its important historic parklands to optimise carbon storage, water quality and regulation of peak flow events, and to strengthen habitat networks, enhancing the sense of place and history.

For example by:

• Seeking to protect, restore and increase the resilience of ancient woodlands across the NCA, seeking opportunities on Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites (PAWS) (as planted conifers reach economic felling age) to restore to a native mix appropriate to the NCA, through natural regeneration and planting stock of local provenance, taking into account the potential impacts of climate change and the threat from pests and diseases.
• Ensuring that woodland management is operated flexibly to accommodate features that require cycles of open canopy, for example for birds or invertebrates.
• Protecting and improving existing woodland to retain historic features and structural diversity, retaining deadwood as important habitat and protecting woodland features in multiple-use woodlands. Seeking opportunities to reinstate traditional management practices (such as coppicing), which can also enhance biodiversity interest.
• Creating, extending and linking woodlands and scrub (particularly on steeper slopes, in valleys and along stretches of watercourses), in keeping with local landscape character and avoiding wetlands and species-rich grasslands. This will strengthen the habitat network, increase infiltration rates to recharge the aquifer, and build the water-holding capacity of the land, thus regulating peak flows.
• Seeking opportunities to expand the small area of heathland habitat through the restoration of clearfell areas and woodland rides, particularly where the seed bank persists, and with reference to the Forestry Commission’s open habitats policy.
• Restoring and managing historic parklands and estates, such as at Castle Howard and Newburgh Priory – retaining veteran trees, restoring wood pasture and vistas, and bringing woodlands into appropriate management – enhancing the opportunities for sustainable recreational access and contributing to the creation of ecological networks.
• Restoring hedgerows, hedgerow trees and infield trees as characteristic features of this landscape.
• Managing existing woodland and expanding tree cover in appropriate locations to enhance biodiversity, protect soils and sequester carbon, as well as providing a source of timber and wood fuel. Seeking opportunities to develop alternative markets for timber.
• Ensuring that short rotation coppice or miscanthus grown for energy is assimilated into the wooded landscape character.
• Seeking to screen existing developments and future settlement-edge developments with woodland, to assimilate with the existing landscape character, and to reduce noise and light pollution, maintaining the area’s high levels of tranquillity.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Support sustainable management of the agricultural landscape to retain important rates of food provision, while enhancing the network of semi-natural habitats within pastoral and arable landscapes, protecting the wildlife and water quality of the River Derwent, optimising carbon storage, soil quality and regulation of peak flow events, and strengthening the sense of place.

For example by:

• Continuing and enhancing provision of high-quality farmed produce in ways that optimise productivity, utilise local skills and build on the success of local markets, while supporting the provision of ecosystem services in the farmed landscape, minimising carbon emissions and making a positive contribution to the sense of place.
• Maintaining pastoral land uses and supporting extensive grazing to maintain wildlife and historic interest, and local rarities such as knapweed broomrape. Protecting soil quality and encouraging water infiltration and aquifer recharge, thus enhancing water availability and regulating flow.
• Restoring, extending and linking species-rich or low-input grasslands, and strengthening the habitat network around the core sites of old unimproved pastures and hay meadows, calcareous grasslands, road verges and old churchyards, so that pollinators and species that prey on pests are supported in proximity to crops.
• Maintaining and restoring hedgerows and hedgerow trees, and widening the range of habitats in arable areas by creating permanent grassland field margins, reverting whole fields to meadow or pasture, and linking these to the wider grassland resource where possible.
• Working with neighbouring NCAs to encourage land management practices that will increase the interception of rainfall in upper catchments, and reduce the supply of nutrients and sediment to watercourses.
• Increasing the amount of carbon stored in agricultural soils by managing organic matter content, aerating and adopting minimum tillage. Adopting best practice in soils and nutrient management, using rotational cropping and ‘green manure’ legumes.
• Encouraging arable systems to support a greater diversity of flora and fauna through measures that will enhance arable flora, wild bird seed and nectar provision, and provide overwintered stubbles to support farmland birds, while protecting soils and supporting the network of semi-natural grassland habitats.
• Protecting and enhancing wetland habitats (and their associated species) as an important component of the farmed landscape that will improve water storage capacity and carbon storage. Seeking opportunities to strengthen the network of mires and wet woodlands around cores sites such as Dalby Bush Fen SSSI and Jeffry Bog SSSI.
• Along the River Derwent and in other riparian areas, encouraging management practices that will protect watercourses from diffuse nutrient inputs, such as permanent grassland buffer strips. Adopting measures that will protect soils from erosion, for example tree planting, and fencing livestock off from watercourses, thus minimising sediment input.
• Controlling invasive species such as Himalayan balsam.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Protect the geological and historic landscape features that are characteristic of the area, including its distinct landform, prehistoric earthworks, medieval monasteries, grand houses with designed parkland, and settlement pattern. Manage these features to provide diverse public benefits, enhancing the sense of place and history, and protecting natural resources.

For example by:

• Enhancing the distinctive topography of ridges, plateaux, hills, scarps and gorges, using semi-natural vegetation to accentuate the landform, avoiding disruption to the topography and protecting views into and out of this landscape.
• Ensuring that important geological features and exposures (for example at Kirkham Gorge, Nunnington Cutting and Quarries, and Wath Quarry) are under appropriate management. Seeking opportunities
  to extend the series of geological sites by designating regionally or locally important sites (Regionally Important Geological Sites or Local Geological Sites), securing the appropriate management of their geological interest and, where appropriate, creating opportunities for access and learning.
• Protecting historic ground features under permanent grassland, and maintaining sustainable grazing and scrub management on archaeological sites and earthworks, thus also protecting soils, storing carbon, and managing water availability, flow and quality.
• In arable areas, seeking to protect historic ground features through reversion to pasture; where this is not feasible, encouraging shallow cultivation techniques.
• Restoring and managing historic parklands and estates – and their key features, such as monuments and buildings, veteran trees and planned vistas – preventing further loss from changes in land management or neglect. Supporting sustainable public access to and enjoyment of these sites, and managing them to enhance their native flora and fauna and their contribution to local habitat networks.
• Through management advice and support, seeking to reduce the numbers of historic buildings and structures on English Heritage’s ‘Heritage at Risk’ list.
• Maintaining historic field patterns (including surviving linear strip fields) and managing field boundaries. Restoring hedgerows and boundary trees in lowland areas, and maintaining and restoring drystone walls on elevated plateaux.
• Conserving the nucleated or linear character of villages and their village greens, and elsewhere conserving the pattern of low-density scattered farmsteads, mostly on fringes around open plateaux.
• Promoting the use of local materials (Jurassic limestone and sandstone, with red pantile roofs) and traditional skills for new buildings within villages, for the restoration of historic buildings and for drystone walls, to maintain the integrity of village character. This may be supported by small-scale quarrying to provide suitable building stone, where this can be accommodated with minimal visual or noise intrusion.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Promote enhanced access to and enjoyment of the Howardian Hills in ways that will maintain and enhance the AONB’s special qualities and character, and its tranquillity, and that will support the essential underpinning ecosystem services, the quality of soils and water, and carbon storage.

For example by:

• Maintaining public access to enable enjoyment of this landscape, while conserving the sense of tranquillity, relative remoteness and sense of escapism, and protecting vulnerable habitats.
• Maintaining access to the landscape through open access land and footpaths. Promoting new links, in particular circular routes near to villages, to promote health and wellbeing, and to enhance public access to visitor attractions such as historic homes and gardens.
• Seeking opportunities to maintain and extend access provision in ways that will not cause localised disturbance to wildlife, or soil erosion or compaction, particularly near watercourses. Maximising the associated opportunities for restoring and extending habitat networks, and for engaging with local communities through volunteering events.
• Seeking opportunities to develop new educational access schemes to promote understanding of the strong agricultural, forestry, geological and cultural/historical significance of the landscape.
• Conserving the sense of tranquillity associated with this NCA, by minimising light spill at night through careful lighting design.
• Managing green spaces (such as verges alongside roads and tracks, and churchyards) as part of the habitat network – for species diversity, for pollinators and for an enhanced visitor experience.
• Maintaining the quiet, rural character of the area, ensuring that road improvements and development are designed to protect the area’s special qualities, including its low levels of intrusion and disturbance. Ensuring that new development utilises innovative solutions to minimise water demand and energy use, and employs sustainable drainage systems.