131 - New Forest : Analysis: Landscape Attributes & Opportunities

Analysis supporting Statements of Environmental Opportunity

The following analysis section focuses on the landscape attributes and opportunities for this NCA.

Further analysis on ecosytem services for this NCA is contained in the Analysis: Ecosytem Services section.

Landscape attributes

The core of the New Forest; an entirely uncultivated mixture of extensive, open rolling heaths and valley mires, inclosures of broadleaf and coniferous plantation woodland, and large tracts of unenclosed ancient semi-natural mature oak woodland pasture.

Justification for selection:

• The essential landscape of the New Forest, shaped by its geology and acid soils, created by its royal hunting forest/commoning history and now recognised as a National Park.
• Clear brown water streams meander through the woodland in etched river courses, and there is widespread, rich evidence of early settlement in the form of, for example, barrows and earthworks.
• This landscape defines the sense of place, inspiration and history of the NCA.
• The largest remaining area of uncultivated semi-natural habitat in lowland Europe where ancient pastoral management remains, all designated SPA, SAC and SSSI with a plethora of Biodiversity 2020 habitats.
• Levels of tranquillity and dark sky criteria are high in large parts of the area, and this is feature of the area as a whole, particularly the tranquillity of the ancient and ornamental woodlands.
• The area is the subject of multiple HLS agreements, including a single agreement covering 20,000 ha on the Crown Lands within the open forest.
• The future of the commoning tradition, the impacts of increasing recreational use, the pressures of economic growth and the effects of climate change are major forces for, largely negative change.
• For most visitors to the National Park, this landscape provides the outlet for walking, cycling and horse riding, and is almost entirely open access land.

Enclosed ‘back-up’ farmland and dispersed farmsteads, villages and hamlets around the fringes of the open forest.

Justification for selection:

• This has a more intimate character of small pastures, horse paddocks and some assarted fields, enclosed by high hedges with many mature hedgerow trees, giving the impression of being part of the New Forest, and a network of narrow winding, enclosed and unenclosed, lanes.
• The pastoral, settled and farmed working landscape that provides for and supports the commoning tradition essential for the maintenance of the open forest.
• It generally sits outside the core SAC/SPA/SSSI but contains all the Conservation Areas and a large proportion of the listed buildings that make up the traditional forest farmsteads, cottages and villages.

Commoners’ stock (donkeys, ponies, sheep, cattle and pigs) which graze and is responsible for the persistence of this ancient landscape, is a common visual feature, particularly along roadsides and on the close-cropped verges, lawns and commons which run through the New Forest settlements.

Justification for selection:

• A third element of the New Forest image is the common sight of livestock everywhere in the open forest, including along roads through the non-cattle gridded towns and villages. Ponies and donkeys are the most common but pigs and cattle are also often seen at certain times of the year.
• For visitors, particularly young children, this is a very special experience. It provides a connection with historic pastoral farming and a reminder of the presence of commoning and its importance in the management of the forest.
• The New Forest pony is a rare breed and bloodstock is threatened by breeding with other lines.
• Wild deer are also regularly seen, but not in such close proximity as commoners’ stock and only in the open in certain seasons, mainly autumn.
• Animal road deaths have been a problem as levels of traffic have increased, and a 40 mph speed limit has been introduced on all unfenced roads to try to reduce this.
• Any change in the extent and/or nature of commoning would have a major impact on the special qualities of the New Forest.

An undeveloped open, marshy coastal strip with shingle beaches and spits, backed by low crumbling cliffs, with prominent oaks and maritime pines, and views across the Solent to the Isle of Wight and along the shore to Bournemouth and the distant Purbeck coast.

Justification for selection:

• In parts, an isolated, tranquil and wild landscape that provides a contrasting atmosphere and sense of place to the traditional New Forest, with access to the beach, sea views and water sport opportunities.
• Distinctive coastal process features such as the cliffs, spits, salt marsh, lagoons and mudflats.
• Evidence of salterns remains in the form of sea walls, lagoons and disused docks and structures.
• Most of the coast is covered by overlapping SAC, SPA and SSSI and contains several Biodiversity 2020 coastal/marine habitats. The western section from Highcliffe to Hordle is a geological SSSI exposing the underlying geology of the NCA, an internationally recognised formation/series.
• The Hurst Spit to Calshot section is part of the National Park.
• Coastal squeeze, sea level rise and other climate change events, and the need to allow habitats to migrate inland are a major force for change.
• The Waterside/Southampton Water coast is extensively urbanised and industrialised inland of the marshes and mudflats, and is outside the National Park. Development pressures represent a force for change along this section.

The broad lush floodplain of the lower Hampshire Avon Valley, with grazing cattle on the water meadows, the meandering wide main river crossed by elegant stone bridges, and a maze of carriers, ditches and braided streams. Gravel extraction from the valley floor has left several large open water bodies.

Justification for selection:

• Provides a contrasting landscape to the traditional New Forest and a link, via its catchment, source and water quality, with the Chalk geology to the north of the NCA.
• Shaped by a water meadow farming history and with widespread evidence of its influence on the landscape.
• Long linear SAC, SPA and SSSI designations follow the river course and the wet meadows of the valley bottom.
• A major public water supply source and recipient of sewage discharge for Bournemouth, Poole and Christchurch, and an area of flood risk, all representing a force for change.
• Similarly the changing farming patterns and effect of river management, drainage and farming practices on the water meadows.
• The valley bottom contains the most valuable aggregate resource in Hampshire, and has already been heavily affected by extraction, resulting in large water bodies north of Ringwood now highly valued for their biodiversity, particularly bird populations. The prospect of further extraction is a potential force for change

The quiet wooded tidal estuary and creeks of the Beaulieu River with the conserved buildings, artefacts and landscape features of the timber shipbuilding industry.

Justification for selection:

• A small contained landscape within the New Forest, in which the quiet winding narrow estuary, flanked along its length by woodlands, and the marshes of Needs Ore point, create an isolation and intimacy that separates it from its surroundings.
• SAC, SPA and SSSI cover the estuary, its creeks and the coastal areas, and the area is designated as a National Nature Reserve (North Solent).
• Beaulieu Abbey, with its famous motor museum, the Conservation Area and listed buildings of Beaulieu village, and the Bucklers Hard living shipbuilding museum provide an unprecedented collection of historic sites. This is a major visitor attraction and probably the best known site in the National Park.
• Exbury, a Historic Park and Garden on the eastern bank, is a major visitor attraction.

Isolated farmhouses, cottages and hamlets with buildings of brick, local stone and timber frames. Outbuildings, built of cob (often unrendered), rough black boarding or corrugated tin complement these clusters.

Justification for selection:

• The brick and slate, or weather-boarded agricultural buildings and houses, either in isolation or in small linear settlements, many of them originally the homes of commoners or foresters, are part of the New Forest and a link with its provenance.
• They form part of the classic image of the New Forest, set against a backdrop of ancient woodland, overlooking grazed lawns with ponies or viewed from a distance across open heath.
• Uncertainty over the future of commoning and the popularity of New Forest villages for people choosing to live in the Forest for lifestyle reasons provides a force for change.

Distant skyline views of the chimneys, cranes and structures of the oil refinery, power station, incinerator and docks of Southampton Water.

Justification for selection:

• In the eastern part of the National Park, particularly from the elevated open heaths, the skyline is dominated by these structures. It is a reminder that the Southampton conurbation, with its economically important port and associated industrial activity, is on the doorstep of the National Park.
• Growing population and economic growth, the increasing popularity of outdoor recreation, particularly for health benefits, the proximity of the National Park and the difficulty of providing new greenspace facilities in urban areas, provides a force for change.

The urban/suburban area of Christchurch, Highcliffe, Barton on Sea, Milford on Sea and New Milton with large areas of post-war suburban housing and holiday developments along the beaches and cliff tops, and inland of Christchurch Bay.

Justification for selection:

• One of two urban landscapes in the NCA. This built-up area of, mostly, suburban housing, extends east from Christchurch along the flat coastal plain. Several formerly isolated settlements have merged in to a large residential mass.
• This area is outside the National Park, but the proximity of the park and the Christchurch Bay coastline provide a major attraction for developers and residents.
• To the north of the area ribbon development has spread along both sides of many of the smaller roads in to the southern edge of the National Park, much of it associated with horse keeping.
• This area of development is not a prominent visual feature within the NCA unless seen from the sea or the beach.
• For many years, the rate of housing growth in this area was the highest in this region of England and further development is a major force for change.

The ‘Waterside’ is an urbanised and industrialised strip, east of the A326 trunk road, including Marchwood, Hythe and Dibden. It also includes Fawley oil refinery and power station, a collection of prominent former military buildings on Calshot Spit, and the Southampton Water and Test Estuary shoreline of salt marsh and mudflats.

Justification for selection:

• Development, largely housing, has also spread south from Totton along the western side of Southampton Water south to Blackfield and Fawley village. Functionally this is part of the Southampton conurbation. Much of it is associated with employment generated by the oil refinery, power station and port related activity.
• There are views across the busy shipping lanes of Southampton Water to the City, its docks and the Royal Victoria Country Park and Netley Cliff shoreline.
• It is outside the National Park and, other than the industrial chimneys and stacks, does not form a prominent visual feature viewed from a distance. Large scale structural planting alongside the A326 provides a good visual screen to the housing areas and the refinery.
• There are several large undeveloped areas which connect the National Park with the Southampton Water and these have been identified as ‘strategic gaps’, by the District Council in its Core Strategy, with a presumption against further development.
• Day visit numbers to the New Forest from this area and the Christchurch/Ringwood areas, mostly car based, are high and good public transport linkages are scarce.

An arable belt, along and inland of the coast, of large well managed enclosure fields with neat low hedges. A further similar strip of arable land with smaller fields extends between the western escarpment of the New Forest and the Avon water meadows.

Justification for selection:

• This feature is not one for which the New Forest is renowned. Arable farmland however covers a large area on more fertile, well drained soils, in the National Park between Keyhaven and Calshot and between Sopley and Fordingbridge. Outside the Park it occurs west of Milford on Sea.
• Farming practices and economics are likely to be influenced by the demands for arable crops, the fodder demand of commoners, CAP reform, changes to agri environment agreements and climate change.

Landscape opportunities

• Conserve and protect the natural, historic and cultural landscape attributes, particularly their tranquillity and biodiversity, and the local distinctiveness of the open forest, ‘back-up’ land and its settlements, the undeveloped coast and the Avon Valley, while retaining and improving its accessibility and value for outdoor recreation.
• Manage disturbed, degraded and damaged landscape attributes, for example coastal features, river courses, mires, wetlands and poorly managed woodland, to restore and enhance biodiversity, enable compatible recreational and agricultural or forestry use, and seek to increase the value of key associated ecosystem service contributions, for example climate change adaptability and regulation, biomass and timber.
• Support and manage the system of commoning and the landscapes and socio-economic facilities required to support it, and promote its value as an ecosystem service (food provision), its role in sustaining the open forest and its potential as a visitor attraction.
• Manage the coast to allow natural processes to take place, where appropriate within Shoreline Management Plan policies, to enhance flood regulation capabilities and enable replacement habitat creation where it can compensate for the effect of coastal squeeze.
• Manage the Lower Avon river system to restore connection with the floodplain, enhance and restore river and wetland habitats, enable climate change/flooding resilience and sustain public water supply consistently with catchment, river basin and abstraction plans.
• Utilise the visibility of the Southampton industrial skyline to raise awareness of the proximity of large urban areas and the impact of recreational activity on the landscape, enhance access routes from urban areas for walkers, cyclists and horse riders to reduce car based trips, and enhance the provision of greenspace and other access land outside sensitive habitats to provide close proximity opportunities for recreation.
• Utilise the popularity of the experience of roadside ponies and cattle through educational literature and information, to raise awareness of commoning as an essential activity for the future of the New Forest, and the threat to stock from traffic, disturbance and loss of back-up pasture.
• Capitalise on changing farming economics and practices where it produces opportunities in areas of arable farming to extend the woodland or heathland habitats, enables habitat creation to compensate for areas lost as a result of coastal squeeze, provide recreational outlets in non-sensitive areas and improve the management of private woodlands.