38 - Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Yorkshire Coalfield : 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: Restore and enhance existing areas and create new landscapes through the inclusion of woodland and networks of green infrastructure to raise the overall quality of design and location of new developments. Regeneration and restoration of industrial sites should seek to create green infrastructure that links fragments of the natural environment, leading to a functioning network for wildlife and access and recreational amenities for people.

For example by:

• Reclaiming and restoring areas of contaminated and degraded land to create new post-industrial landscapes through the creation of habitats to strengthen local habitat networks and provide opportunities for recreation for local populations, while retaining links to industrial heritage.
• Creating green spaces close to where people live which are easily accessible, especially in regeneration zones within old mining areas and in inner-city developments.
• Creating new landscapes that are sympathetic to the local landscape character and incorporating habitats that will contribute to biodiversity and climate change mitigation, through careful planning of green infrastructure, such as in Waverley between Sheffield and Rotherham.
• Ensuring that new development is located and designed with particular consideration for keeping important open views, and using tree and shrub planting of native species to assist in assimilating built structures, especially in urban fringe areas outside major urban areas such as Derby and Nottingham.
• Incorporating biodiversity and geodiversity in old quarries and on previously developed land into area plans and master plans for future developments, for example around Sheffield where old industrial sites are being regenerated.
• Realising the potential for canals and rivers to provide sustainable travel and access corridors alongside other green infrastructure benefits, for example the Chesterfield and Cromford canals.
• Incorporating past industrial land, such as disused railways, and recognising their important role for geodiversity and in providing linking corridors for biodiversity and recreation.
• Creating new permissive access routes, for example around reservoirs, and links to long-distance routes such as the Ebor Way and Trans Pennine Trail, and ensuring that some surfaced paths are provided for use by people of all levels of ability.
• Creating new recreational opportunities within developing landscapes in response to the Yorkshire and Humber Green Infrastructure Framework and the 6Cs Green Infrastructure Strategy, improving the quality of the environment for local residents and providing ‘places to escape from it all’ and easy access routes close to centres of population.
• Ensuring that country parks and accessible parklands and woodlands are maintained and managed so that they contribute both to the quality of the environment and to biodiversity networks.
• Ensuring that parklands are under management that maintains their historical value while enhancing the biodiversity and recreational benefits that they offer, and their settings.
• Integrating the co-ordinated provision of green infrastructure in developments to offer the local community opportunities to enjoy their local green spaces and take action to improve them.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Protect and manage the archaeological and historical environment to safeguard a strong sense of cultural identity and heritage, particularly mining heritage, and use the area’s distinctive sense of place to inspire interpretation and new development. Engage local communities with their past by enhancing the early, industrial and mining landscapes through restoration of key features of sites and improving access and interpretation.

For example by:

• Conserving industrial buildings and associated features, for example civic buildings, bell pits, mills, mining artefacts, canal networks, bridges and characteristic terraced housing, and encouraging interpretation of their role in the historical development of the area.
• Using an understanding of the area’s traditional and historic architecture, and its distinct patterns of settlement, to inform appropriate conservation of historic buildings, and to plan for and inspire any environmentally beneficial new development which makes a positive contribution to local character.
• Managing and restoring traditional field boundaries, particularly where they are most visible in the landscape, form regular patterns and enclose coherent survivals of historical fields.
• Conserving, maintaining and restoring the area’s distinctive farmsteads, including those with nationally significant evidence of industrial use.
• Managing and interpreting disused quarries and other mineral workings to provide opportunities for geodiversity, recreation and education for schools, universities and people who are interested in the influence of the underlying geology on the history of the area, and for scientific research.
• Encouraging traditional production such as rhubarb in the ‘rhubarb triangle’ between Morley, Rothwell and Wakefield and products such as Yorkshire forced rhubarb, protected by the European Commission’s Protected Food Names scheme, which give areas a sense of identity.
• Providing heritage interpretation for the many sites of historical, industrial, geological and cultural heritage interest, which contributes to a sense of local Examples include castle ruins, country houses, remaining pit heads and brickworks.
• Using local materials (sandstone and millstone for building, with stone flag or pantile roofs as appropriate) for restoration of traditional buildings to preserve visual unity and the connection with the underlying geology.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Conserve, enhance and expand areas and corridors of semi-natural habitat such as grasslands and woodlands to create a functioning ecological network that links the fragmented patches of habitats through urban and sustainably farmed environments, thus assisting species and habitat adaptation to climate change, reducing soil erosion and diffuse pollution.

For example by:

• Ensuring that existing areas of heathland are protected and managed, restoring it where possible and ensuring that sites are buffered with sensitive land management which will protect the heathland interest, and linking it to other semi-natural habitats where possible.
• Widening the range of habitats in arable areas, particularly in the low-lying east of the NCA and in valleys, including the introduction of permanent grassland field margins and linking these to the wider grassland resource where possible.
• Managing and enhancing the fragments of rough grazing, grassland habitats, lowland pastures and hay meadows in lowland areas, as valuable habitats for strengthening landscape character and enhancing biodiversity, including managing livestock levels to reduce poaching, and seeking ways of connecting them.
• Managing and restoring traditional field boundaries, particularly where they are most visible in the landscape, form coherent patterns and enclose historical fields, respecting differences in local styles.
• Encouraging uptake of land management practices to support farmland bird populations, especially near to valley wetland habitats.
• Encouraging land management practices such as creating grassland buffer strips and grass verges, reducing fertiliser inputs and managing rush pastures to provide a buffer to soil erosion and nutrient run-off in areas of arable production, particularly adjacent to watercourses.
• Increasing the planting of native trees and shrubs, and extending biodiversity networks, responding to the Yorkshire and Humber Green Infrastructure Framework and the 6Cs Green Infrastructure Strategy.
• Avoiding further fragmentation of agricultural land and semi-natural habitats.
• Increasing areas of native woodland within the landscape for recreational use, providing local sources of wood fuel and incorporating new development, while strengthening the ecological habitat network.
• Managing the area’s diverse range of woodlands, veteran trees, wood pasture and parklands to enhance landscape character and safeguard their biodiversity value while seeking opportunities to enhance habitats.
• Planning for new opportunities to plant woods and new areas of wood pasture to expand existing sites, and to create short rotation coppice to enhance timber and biomass provision, increase carbon storage, regulate water flow and quality, and reduce habitat fragmentation.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Manage, enhance and extend wetland habitats associated with the rivers Aire, Calder, Dearne, Don, Rother and Erewash and their tributaries to increase the landscape’s ability to naturally and sustainably manage flooding, improve water quality and increase the resilience of these habitats, the riverine landscape and associated species to climate change.

For example by:

• Restoring and extending fens and flushes to enhance This will help to improve water quality by filtration.
• Increasing semi-natural habitats to help to slow down the volume of water entering the river system during and after storms and periods of heavy This has been trialled upstream of Leeds in the Upper Aire Valley.
• Restoring natural river dynamics and profiles, re-connecting rivers to their flood plains and restoring relic water features, and creating and expanding marginal habitats such as wet woodland, scrub and permanent grassland, seeking ways to mitigate the heavily modified courses and urban influences in order to relieve water flow in the river systems.
• Encouraging buffers of permanent grassland around wetlands, streams and rivers to enhance ecological quality and reduce diffuse pollution from agriculture, such as through the lower river valleys of the Aire and Dearne.
• Promoting land management practices to reduce erosion and pollution.
• Maintaining undeveloped flood plains to store water, and seeking opportunities to expand washlands and water storage in flood plains.
• Protecting and increasing trees on urban streets, and promoting sustainable urban drainage systems and green spaces to aid interception and infiltration of rain water and slow run-off.
• Ensuring that the restoration of previous mining sites aids water flow regulation and, through their management, contributes towards flood Controlling and managing the presence and introduction of non-native species within wetland habitats (the history of residential and commercial developments along watercourses within the NCA increases the issue of non-native species introductions here).