84 - Mid Norfolk : 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: Work with the local farming community to safeguard future food production, while conserving and enhancing the traditional rural character, long views and strong sense of tranquillity in this area of long-settled, ancient countryside. Manage and enhance farmland habitats – including hedgerows and woodland, field margins and pastoral river corridors – to enhance the area for farmland species (including pollinators), improve water quality and availability in the rivers and aquifer, manage soil erosion and quality, and address the impacts of climate change.

For example by:

• Managing the agricultural landscape in a sustainable way to improve the long-term viability of agriculture and yields, while protecting the natural assets of the area.
• Working with farmers to reduce the loss of sediment and associated phosphates from agricultural land through appropriate changes in land management, including the use of buffer strips adjacent to watercourses.
• Reducing soil compaction by encouraging the careful timing of land management activities, including reducing unnecessary machinery use in wet conditions.
• Working with farmers through agricultural stewardship schemes to increase organic matter in soils through promoting management interventions including the use of grass leys, introducing fallow into rotations and over-winter stubbles.
• Working with farmers to reduce sources of nitrate leaching to groundwater and run-off to surface waters by promoting the adoption of best practice measures, including the more efficient use of organic manures and fertilisers.
• Maintaining water availability by using integrated water and land management practices to slow run-off and increase infiltration to the underlying chalk aquifer by reducing soil compaction and increasing soil organic matter on agricultural land.
• Strengthening the characteristic hedgerow network by protecting, managing and reinstating hedgerows and hedgerow trees, thereby connecting fragmented habitats, improving biodiversity and reducing wind erosion.
• Seeking opportunities to increase field margins, species-rich hedgerows and beetle banks to encourage a network of habitats for pest-regulating species close to areas of agricultural production.
• Encouraging sympathetic management for pollinator species by enhancing the floristic diversity of hedgerow banks and increasing the areas of pollen and nectar margins on arable farms.
• Maintaining the traditional landscape character of patchwork fields enclosed by hedgerows with hedgerow oaks and quiet country lanes with wide verges.
• Maintaining the tranquillity of agricultural areas by limiting development, especially of major road networks.
• Encouraging an increase in farmland bird, mammal and invertebrate species by promoting wildlife-friendly farming practices and enhancing arable field margins and hedgerows.
• Reducing risk and promoting the positive management of designated (and non-designated) heritage assets though the use of stewardship schemes and beneficial agricultural practices.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Maintain, enhance and restore priority habitats including woodlands, areas of remnant heathland, and the nationally and internationally important Norfolk Valley Fens and chalk river systems (including the River Wensum), and seek opportunities to connect fragmented sites, improving the area for biodiversity, geodiversity and recreation, and enhancing landscape character and resilience to climate change.

For example by:

• Maintaining the protected sites network, ensuring continued protection of priority habitats and species including the Norfolk Valley Fens SAC and River Wensum SAC, and SSSI including Foxley Wood.
• Maintaining and enhancing areas of ancient semi-natural woodland and planting new areas of broadleaved woodland to address fragmentation.
• Bringing local woodlands into traditional coppice management, to improve structural diversity and species composition and increase biomass.
• Increasing the biodiversity of conifer plantations by re-introducing native broadleaved trees.
• Maintaining and enhancing existing areas of heathland in the river valleys of the Nar, Wissey and Wensum, and investigating opportunities to connect fragmented sites and restore heathland habitat in other areas.
• Increasing the biodiversity of river valleys by restocking poplar plantations with native wet woodland.
• Investigating opportunities to improve biodiversity and geodiversity by re-naturalising river systems, removing structures and reconnecting rivers to their natural flood plains.
• Restoring wet grassland, fen and carr habitats in the Wensum river corridor as part of a whole river restoration project to improve the biodiversity of the river corridor.
• Modifying or removing barriers on river systems, where possible, to allow migrating fish passage.
• Conserving areas with high organic content in soils, including wetlands, heathland and woodland, to improve resilience to climate change.
• Seeking opportunities to link fragmented habitats with other semi-natural habitats to enable species to move in response to climate change.
• Restoring and creating new areas of wetland habitats, including wet grassland, fen and carr, to aid aquifer recharge.
• Maintaining and enhancing the floristic diversity of lowland meadow and lowland heathland, and other semi-natural habitats, to increase the area of habitat suitable for pollinators.
• Raising awareness of the problem of invasive species and adopting appropriate management for their control.
• Increasing areas of natural flood plain vegetation and hedgerows in agricultural areas to reduce the risks of soil erosion.
• Seeking opportunities to improve access to wildlife-rich areas, where feasible, and increasing interpretation and education to help connect the local community to their natural heritage.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Encourage a sympathetic approach to development that maintains traditional Norfolk character and improves sustainable recreational use, while protecting historic assets, geodiversity and biodiversity.

For example by:

• Ensuring that development plans are sensitive to conserving the historic character of the landscape and promote the use of traditional vernacular and building materials, as well as conserving and enhancing heritage assets and traditional buildings and settlement.
• Conserving the traditional character of country house estates with their associated woodlands, parklands and villages, encouraging their use as a recreational and tourist attraction, while maintaining their biodiversity and geodiversity value.
• Ensuring the protection of designated and non-designated heritage assets, including medieval churches, while seeking opportunities to enhance interpretation and, where appropriate, improve access.
• Ensuring the protection of the historic assets of Norwich, including its Norman, medieval and Georgian architecture and surrounding Roman historical sites.
• Minimising the effects of new development by avoiding areas with high tranquillity, incorporating green infrastructure and woodland buffers, and minimising new sources of light pollution.
• Improving and promoting the use of sustainable transport, including the bus network, cycling and footpath routes.
• Promoting the Quiet Lanes project and investigating opportunities to expand the network and improve its effectiveness.
• Enhancing sustainable access through the public rights of way network and National Trails, improving recreation and the health of the local community, and protecting agricultural management practices, habitats and wildlife.
• Ensuring that local development plans include the sustainable management of water resources and promote measures to reduce adverse impacts on water quality in the future, including the use of sustainable urban drainage systems, sewage treatment options and reducing nutrients from diffuse pollution.
• Investigating opportunities to create and enhance green infrastructure and public access by creating additional linkages between existing public footpaths, settlements, amenities and transport links.
• Creating new areas of greenspace in conjunction with new developments and identifying locations for new recreational sites such as country parks.
• Conserving and interpreting archaeological earthworks and sub-surface archaeology, while recognising the potential for undiscovered remains.
• Investigating opportunities to enhance awareness and appreciation of underlying geodiversity.