76 - North West 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: Protect and manage the nationally important agricultural landscape and plan for it to become more resilient to the likely impacts of climate change while seeking to enhance landscape, habitat integrity and connectivity for the benefit of wildlife and managed access for people.

For example by:

• Protecting and encouraging sustainable agriculture in this nationally important agricultural area though crop rotation and the use of environmental land management schemes.
• Planning for climate change by promoting diversification of cropping, especially towards agricultural regimes which help to conserve water.
• Introducing fallow years into rotations, leaving overwintering stubble to mitigate soil erosion and benefit farmland birds using minimal cultivation and arable reversion to protect archaeological and historical ground features.
• Ensuring that water storage reservoirs are constructed to cope with possible increased future droughts resulting from changing climate, as well as to provide freshwater habitats.
• Conserving and supporting the populations of bird species associated with arable farming through the creation of buffer strips and uncut grass field margins, as well as maintaining adjacent grassland areas where appropriate.
• Promoting the reversion of flood plain arable land back to grassland, creating wet pasture and grazing marsh where possible.
• Creating more margins, buffer strips and grassland within the farmed land to contribute to water quality and availability and the reduction of soil erosion; these features will also benefit pollination.
• Ensuring that hedgerows and hedgerow trees are well managed, and restoring hedges where this will strengthen the historic hedgerow pattern and reduce soil erosion.
• Maintaining the small-scale pastoral character of river valleys and extending areas of permanent grassland where possible, to improve infiltration of rainwater.
• Maintaining traditional river valley pastures and damp scrub (rivers Stiffkey, Burn, Babingley and Nar) and pastures in the farmland with woodland and wetland sub-area, through appropriate grazing management.
• Restoring watercourses to natural profiles and flooding regimes; allowing them to follow more natural courses; and supporting the operation of natural processes – with consequent benefits in terms of floodwater storage and retention.
• Maintaining water quality and using relevant scheme options to buffer watercourses against water quality deterioration caused by high nutrient levels and lowered flows.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Conserve, enhance and increase public awareness of the distinctive historic and rural landscape and local towns and villages, and improve public awareness, enjoyment and access to the NCA’s heritage and distinctive geology.

For example by:

• Creating and enhancing opportunities for public access by establishing additional access points/linkages between existing public footpaths, settlements, communities, amenities, transport links, the coastal access route and the Peddars Way and Norfolk Coast Path National Trail, and creating links to the more heavily used coastal areas.
• Improving access to the coast for walking, cycling and disabled people through the sustainable use of old railway lines, tracks and paths and encouraging reduced car use. Securing opportunities for the public to enjoy the natural environment through the implementation of the England Coast Path while ensuring appropriate protection of it.
• Ensuring promotion of access opportunities informs people about the vulnerability of the coastal habitats in the NCA and encourages visits of a low-impact nature which avoid any adverse impacts on agricultural management, landscape, habitats and wildlife.
• Promoting the wealth of inspiring and historic buildings and places within the NCA, providing interpretation where appropriate.
• Conserving and enhancing historic landscape features and wildlife habitats within the planned open spaces associated with new development.
• Creating new quality areas, especially in woodlands, for people to walk their dogs off-lead, close to local communities and away from traffic, while respecting nature conservation designations and other land management needs.
• Maintaining views across the rolling landscape; developments within villages should conserve and enhance their nucleated character and street patterns and retain important views (for example, to local landmarks such as church towers).
• Interpreting the underlying geology, especially at Hunstanton Cliffs and where Pleistocene sediments and features are accessible, and highlighting their importance as records of climate and environmental change.
• Managing and restoring historic features and designs of parks and gardens, providing access where possible, and interpreting local history.
• Reducing risk and promoting the positive management of designated and (non-designated) heritage assets through the use of environmental land management schemes and beneficial agricultural practices.
• Managing road verges for their species richness, to support pollinators and to strengthen landscape character, providing enjoyment for residents and visitors.
• Promoting local design guidance, and for new development promoting the adoption of vernacular building materials, for example, carstone and flint.
• Using traditional local building materials and retaining a unity of construction materials within villages.
• Promoting the improvement and upgrading of existing holiday developments in keeping with the local vernacular.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Protect and appropriately manage the woodland resource, combining commercial forestry and fuel production, expanding and improving connectivity between broadleaved woodlands for the benefit of wildlife, strengthening landscape character, and improving recreational opportunities.

For example by:

• Enhancing conifer plantations (particularly in the south and west of the NCA) through the introduction of native broadleaved species upon clearfelling.
• Exploring the possibilities of removing conifers and restoring land to heathland where appropriate while finding compensatory places for planting so that the overall woodland area is not reduced.
• Conserving semi-natural woodland areas where they form skyline features, particularly adjacent to main river valleys such as the Nar and Stiffkey.
• Working to remove rhododendron and prevent its re-establishment.
• Creating new woodlands using native species and retaining and managing the striking Scots pine shelterbelts that define a number of the field margins.
• Promoting the selective removal of some less appropriate shelterbelt species and replacement with species that are traditional and consistent with the character of the lanes.
• Enhancing wildlife corridors through increasing the connectivity of small woodland blocks with margins, grassland strips and hedgerows.
• Planting biomass crops and encouraging local farm businesses to increase appropriate-scale generation of heat, utilising woody biomass for woodchip boilers where it is sustainable to do so.
• Managing the woodlands to sustain the populations of nightjar that hunt above and in proximity to them.
• Restoring areas of plantations on ancient woodland sites to increase biodiversity and benefit priority species.
• Improving and promoting access to the NCA’s woodlands to raise awareness of their importance and increase enjoyment of them. Improving interpretation of the history, archaeology, geology, landscape and wildlife of the area through signage and interpretation boards, leaflets and online resources.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Protect and manage the unique geological and biological resource of the NCA and plan for the restoration of semi-natural habitats and improved connectivity where opportunity arises to help make the landscape and its important species more resilient to future pressures for change.

For example by:

• Maintaining and enhancing the geological resource through the development of local geological conservation strategies, assessment of the educational/research value of new sites and by realising any opportunity that might be created by mineral extraction.
• Promoting the geological resource through the assessment and promotion of sites of scientific and educational value, and developing on-site interpretation, including promotion of the influence of geodiversity on local habitats and landscape.
• Identifying opportunities for geodiversity and biodiversity enhancement which might develop from re-naturalisation of watercourses, such as establishing wetland habitats – including wet pasture and wet woodland – and identifying the benefits of natural processes.
• Extending heathland and grassland habitats associated with the mineral workings close to King’s Lynn.
• Protecting, managing and expanding priority habitats, including flood plain grazing marsh near Narborough and Coxford, and heathlands and grasslands, for example at Dersingham Bog and Syderstone Common. There is also scope for restoring the remains of the peat deposits in the valley systems and restoring fen, wet woodlands, purple moor grass and rush pasture.
• Restoring sand and gravel extraction sites for the benefit of biodiversity, geodiversity and priority habitats.
• Continuing to extend and connect heathland and mire habitats through clearfelling of conifer plantations.