20 - Morecambe Bay Limestones : 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 extensive mosaic of high-quality limestone habitats, including pavement, woodland, scrub and grassland, to create a coherent and resilient ecological network, retain a sense of place and maintain the strong relationship between the landscape and its underlying geology.

For example by:

• Supporting the delivery of key actions in the Arnside and Silverdale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and Lake District National Park management plans aimed at protecting and enhancing the limestone landscape.
• Protecting and managing geological features to promote further understanding of these internationally important geological exposures.
• Restoring and enhancing the suite of biological and geological Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Special Areas of Conservation (SAC) present within the National Character Area (NCA), through both targeted measures and wider promotion of the social, cultural, historical and economic value of these sites.
• Protecting and ensuring that the extensive limestone pavement of the NCA is under suitable management both for its unique geological features and for its associated biological habitats.
• Securing sympathetic management of the diverse range of limestone habitats, both inside and outside designated sites, through measures such as restoration of active management of coppiced and formerly coppiced woodlands, securing sustainable grazing regimes and limiting nutrient inputs throughout the catchments of marl lakes.
• Ensuring that transitional habitats, mosaics of different limestone habitats and areas that provide links between habitat patches are recognised and valued, with a particular focus on priority habitats and county wildlife sites.
• Ensuring that invasive species, such as cotoneaster, and native species freed from natural population controls, such as deer, are managed and do not damage the unique heritage of the NCA.
• Protecting and restoring limestone drystone walls as a boundary feature, maintaining the relationship between the boundary type and the underlying limestone geology.
• Supporting programmes that deliver social, cultural and economic benefits from sustainable management of the limestone landscape and promote interaction with it, such as educational and volunteer programmes that raise awareness and skills associated with traditional management of the landscape, for example coppice woodland management, traditional stock management practices and drystone walling.
• Sustainably managing and enhancing existing native woodland, while ensuring that there is sufficient retention of deadwood for wildlife. Conserving the area’s rich legacy of significant archaeological sites associated with woodland exploitation.
• Protecting and restoring the ancient woodlands which form 43 per cent of the woodlands in the NCA, especially the plantations on ancient woodland sites.
• Promoting the establishment of a coherent and resilient network of limestone woodlands where they will not damage other important habitats and features, through expanding and linking existing woodlands, particularly ancient woodland, with areas of new planting.
• Ensuring regeneration within existing native woodland, through the exclusion of deer and livestock where necessary.
• Ensuring that habitat quality is sufficiently high to support habitat specialist species such as the Duke of Burgundy butterfly, high brown fritillary, pearl-bordered fritillary, Scotch argus butterfly, dormouse, hawfinch and others, including those that have been lost in the past such as the natterjack toad, small blue butterfly and goldilocks aster.
• Seeking opportunities to restore lost species, for their own conservation purposes and as a hallmark of the NCA’s identity.
• Support and develop the potential of the NCA as a core area from which limestone species can colonise or re-colonise adjoining NCAs.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Ensure the long-term sustainable management of the nationally and internationally designated coastal zone by conserving and managing its habitats, including the extensive sand flats, salt marshes, estuarine landscapes and limestone cliffs, for their strong sense of inspiration and tranquillity, their diverse range of species, their traditional fisheries, and for their ability to mitigate the effects of climate change through carbon sequestration and coastal flood mitigation.

For example by:

• Securing sympathetic management of the diverse array of high-quality semi-natural habitats of the coastal zone both inside and outside designated sites including coastal woodlands, coastal scrub and grasslands, coastal and flood plain grazing marsh, salt marshes and coastal cliffs.
• Restoring and enhancing the NCA’s suite of coastal SSSI, SAC, Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Ramsar sites and their component habitats and geological features, such as salt marsh geomorphology and coastal geological exposures, through both targeted measures and wider promotion of the sensitivity and value of these sites.
• Delivering key actions in the Arnside and Silverdale AONB and Lake District National Park management plans aimed at restoring and enhancing coastal character.
• Ensuring that invasive species, such as cotoneaster and buddleia, are managed and do not damage the unique coastal grassland heritage of the NCA.
• Ensuring that habitat quality is sufficiently high to support specialist species such as breeding and wintering waders and wildfowl, grayling butterfly, spiked speedwell and spotted cat’s-ear, including species that have been lost in the past such as the natterjack toad, the small blue butterfly and the goldilocks aster.
• Ensuring that sustainable management extends beyond the designated site network so that the wider coastal zone is sympathetically managed with a particular focus on priority habitats, locally important sites and sites that support transitional habitats such as brackish wetlands; where present these should be valued, and where necessary they should be restored and re-created to provide ecological links, reinforce the character of the NCA and support the provision of ecosystem service benefits.
• Securing sustainable management of coastal fisheries and shellfisheries.
• Supporting programmes that deliver social, cultural and economic benefits from sustainable management of coastal resources and promote informed interaction with the coastal landscape, such as educational and volunteer programmes that raise awareness and skills associated with traditional interaction with the coastal landscape such as traditional fisheries and cross-bay travel.
• Recognising the predicted impacts of climate change, including sea level rises and an increase in storm events. Preparing for them by seeking opportunities to maintain dynamic coastal processes and, where appropriate, restore dynamic processes in order to maintain the coast and its habitats in line with the Shoreline Management Plan policies and related strategies, particularly around the reclaimed estuary coastlines of the rivers Kent and Leven where the likelihood of impacts driving change is greatest.
• Conserving archaeological evidence of earlier settlement and land use and, where appropriate, securing off-site conservation of artefacts at risk from coastal change, with reference to heritage-at-risk priorities and bespoke surveys such as English Heritage’s Rapid Coastal Zone Assessment Survey for Morecambe Bay.
• Providing a coastal access route that allows for improved access to, and understanding of, the coast while respecting the sensitive habitats and species of the coastal margin.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Ensure the long-term sustainable management of the nationally and internationally designated wetland landscape and its linking, non-designated, habitats by conserving and restoring the lowland raised bogs, fens, rivers and reedbeds for their strong sense of inspiration and tranquillity, their diverse range of species, and for their ability to mitigate the effects of climate change through carbon sequestration.

For example by:

• Securing sympathetic management of the diverse array of high-quality wetlands both inside and outside designated sites, including rivers, marl lakes, lowland raised bogs, coastal and flood plain grazing marsh, reedbeds and wet woodlands.
• Restoring and enhancing the suite of biological and geological SSSI, SAC, SPAs and Ramsar sites and their habitats present in the NCA, through both targeted measures and wider promotion of the value of these sites.
• Delivering key actions in the Arnside and Silverdale AONB and Lake District National Park management plans aimed at restoring and enhancing wetlands.
• Ensuring that invasive species, such as signal crayfish and Himalayan balsam, are managed and do not damage the unique heritage of the NCA.
• Ensuring that wetland habitat quality is sufficiently high to support specialist species such as bittern, white-faced darter dragonfly, large heath butterfly, breeding lamprey and eels and others, including those that have been lost in the past such as corncrake, natterjack toad, marsh gentian and silver-studded blue butterfly.
• Seeking opportunities to restore lost wetland species, both for their own conservation and as a hallmark of the NCA’s identity.
• Restoring and buffering lowland raised bogs by working with farmers, landowners and others to manage water levels in and adjacent to these sites, protecting them for their biodiversity, carbon sequestration and climate record, and implementing tree removal and managed grazing regimes, where appropriate, to restore water-holding capacity, encourage active peat formation, protect peaty soils and increase resilience to climate change.
• Seeking through infrastructure improvements and better land management practice to address diffuse pollution in the Kent, Leven and Keer river catchments, and in the catchments of Leighton Moss, Hawes Water and Cunswick Tarn.
• Supporting programmes that reduce pressure on grazing marsh to receive inputs of nutrients, particularly along watercourses and at times of year when there is high risk of nutrient run-off.
• Maintaining the relationship between boundary type and the structure of the landscape with hedges with flanking ditches on areas of reclaimed land.
• Managing hedges and ditches so that they support stock management as well as providing pollen, nectar, food and physical habitat for wildlife.
• Developing approaches to pastoral management that protect and enhance soil condition, in particular on soils prone to waterlogging and compaction on flood plains and areas of reclaimed land.
• Ensuring that sustainable management extends beyond the designated site network so that the wider wetland landscape, particularly priority habitats, locally important sites and sites that support transitional habitats, are sympathetically managed, providing ecological links between core sites, supporting species associated with the wider wetland landscape such as breeding waders, reinforcing the character of the NCA and supporting the provision of ecosystem service benefits.
• Supporting programmes that deliver social, cultural and economic benefits from sustainable management of wetland resources and promote informed interaction with the wetland landscape, such as educational and volunteer programmes that raise awareness of the unique range of wetlands in the NCA and promote skills associated with traditional management, such as wetland grazing.
• Aiming to develop the potential of the NCA as a core area from which species can re-colonise adjoining NCAs.
• Promoting the ecosystems service benefits of wetlands, such as lowland raised bogs and carbon sinks and stores, and farmland wetlands as nutrient sinks.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Conserve and enhance the wider landscape of the NCA as the supporting framework to its distinctive attributes, including features of the drumlin landscape, the settlement character, orchards, recreational identity and heritage features, for their individual importance and the complementary role they play in supporting the local visitor economy and providing enjoyment and education to visitors and residents alike.

For example by:

• Capturing the benefits provided by the breadth of the high-quality NCA landscape across economic sectors such as tourism, recreation, food, and fuel at all stages in the chain from source to market.
• Enhancing the structure and extent of the access network including footpaths, bridleways and cycle routes to provide opportunities for all abilities, and to improve the value of this network to the local economy.
• Maintaining and restoring the cultural habitats of the NCA including the orchards, parklands and meadows.
• Maintaining the relationship between boundary type and the structure of the landscape with walls of field stone on drumlins, and hedges on areas of deeper soil.
• Managing hedges, where present, so that they support stock management as well as providing pollen, nectar, food and physical habitat for wildlife.
• Seeking opportunities to preserve and adapt traditional skills to modern markets to maintain NCA character and increase the economic profile of landscape support industries. For example by developing bay crossings as a recreational opportunity; traditional coppice work and wood fuel business as a supporter of a green economy; and low-impact agriculture, based on traditional grazing regimes and orchard produce, as a provider of locally branded quality food for direct marketing and the hospitality sector.
• Supporting and promoting green tourism initiatives and other programmes that explicitly capture the high quality of the NCA landscape as an economic asset and coupling these with information on how to experience the NCA without compromising its assets. Making best use of the direct transport links between the NCA and areas of high population, for example Manchester and London, and the offer of low-carbon outdoor recreation experiences such as walking and cycling.
• Seeking opportunities to restore sites and features that are part of their associated historical context, such as parklands around stately homes and orchards around farmsteads and settlements.
• Where appropriate, promoting opportunities for new woodland creation, both to link and buffer existing sites and to address water quality and flood control.
• Supporting and promoting the role played by land management in supporting the key attributes of the NCA, particularly those businesses that focus on producing quality items in a manner that enhances the NCA’s character, such as meat from livestock sustainably grazed on priority habitats, and produce from damson orchards.
• Promoting programmes which seek to reduce the negative off-site impacts of land management and infrastructure developments, such as the Catchment Sensitive Farming Programme which supports farm adaptations that reduce impact on water quality through reduced nutrient and sediment loading of watercourses.
• Delivering the management plans of the AONB and National Park which expressly link the natural and cultural value of the landscape.
• Encouraging sustainable planning including green infrastructure that respects and enhances the character of the NCA, such as the use of local limestone in building, and using native species in green space design to support the identity and value of the wider landscape.
• Conserving and enhancing the traditional farmsteads and distinctive vernacular architecture of the area, ensuring that new uses for redundant buildings are compatible with their historic character.
• Seeking opportunities to increase the robustness of the landscape in dealing with the impacts of climate change, such as including species whose ranges need to adapt in some planting schemes and establishing protocols for managing new pests and diseases.