144 - Quantock Hills : 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, manage and enhance the landscape of wild and open summits, wooded combes and rolling fields, which support a wide variety of habitats and species, helping to regulate water quality and flow, protecting soil structure and storing carbon.

For example by:

• Protecting the ‘wild’, uncluttered, remote and distinctive character of much of the area through landscape conservation initiatives and through restriction of uncharacteristic development (other than the development, renewal or maintenance of essential utility infrastructure necessary to meet regulatory, health and environmental targets and particularly in relation to water provision and flood management).
• Managing grazing levels on grassland and heathland to avoid overgrazing, poaching or soil compaction.
• Managing peat soils so that they remain wet or are re-wetted to maintain important wetland biodiversity and sequestrate carbon.
• Retaining and managing pasture, hedgebanks and semi-natural habitats such as heath, in such a way as to improve water quality and reduce flood risk for the surrounding areas.
• Managing woodlands, such as those within the Exmoor and Quantock Oakwoods Special Area of Conservation, particularly through the use of traditional woodland management techniques and targeted woodland creation to extend and buffer fragmented ancient woodland, to encourage regeneration of native species and to remove invasive aliens such as rhododendron.
• Encouraging, where appropriate, the restoration of PAWS (Plantations on Ancient Woodland Sites) conifer plantations, at maturity, to open heathland or ancient broadleaved woodland, as appropriate, for the benefit of biodiversity and landscape character and to enhance the resilience of semi-natural habitats to the effects of climate change.
• Encouraging environmentally sensitive farming methods to reduce nitrate run-off and silting of streams.
• Ensuring that moorland swaling (burning) and cutting programmes are sustainably managed and will maintain the open character of the landscape and promote structural and biological diversity as well as avoid loss of peaty soils, while ensuring that these practices do not deplete the store of greenhouse gases through soil erosion or oxidation.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Protect and maintain the many heritage assets, from prehistoric monuments to 19th-century farmsteads, the wealth of geodiversity, the dark skies, and the sense of tranquillity and remoteness found throughout the area, which contribute strongly to the sense of history, recreation and enjoyment of the Quantocks landscape.

For example by:

• Using an understanding of the whole of the NCA’s historic landscape character – the result of how human and natural factors have interacted over millennia – as a framework for enhancing biodiversity throughout the area and also sustaining the palaeo-environmental and wider environmental benefits of its moorlands.
• Protecting significant archaeological sites (such as settlement sites and ridge and furrow) and buried archaeology from damage by cultivation, thus helping to maintain an interesting historical asset as well as helping to maintain the landscape character.
• Protecting varied heritage assets – including archaeological features such as bronze-age barrows, iron-age hill forts, earthwork remains, ridge and furrow, and patterns of former medieval strip farming – and ensuring access to and interpretation of these important historical features.
• Promoting, managing, restoring and enhancing designed parklands, deer parks, wood pasture, ancient and veteran trees, and commons with their associated biodiversity and historic buildings such as old gatehouses. This would help to further improve landscape quality, increasing its recreational value. Managing, restoring and (where appropriate) replanting traditional orchards, thus helping to retain local genetic varieties and historic buildings – for example, cider houses and associated cultural heritage – through local and community events creating new recreation and education resources.
• Retaining genetic diversity of orchard trees by growing a selection of different varieties to allow adaptability to the effects of a changing climate.
• Retaining, restoring and managing appropriately all hedges – and especially those that define enclosure of medieval or earlier fields, as these are a strong landscape feature. This will enhance the landscape, retain historic field patterns and provide an important biodiversity resource and connectivity of particular importance across the arable areas. Good hedgerow management will also help to reduce soil erosion and protect soil quality.
• Paying special attention to the maintenance of traditional beech hedgebanks, replanting where necessary, which will help to retain the special landscape character of the Quantocks as well as helping to slow surface water flow and soil erosion.
• Encouraging access to, interpretation of and understanding of heritage assets by all sections of the community, to enable better current and future management and planning of the environment.
• Delivering the objectives of the Quantock Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to conserve and enhance the natural beauty of the landscape.
• Managing and enhancing access to and interpretation of nationally important and locally characteristic Devonian, Triassic and Jurassic geodiversity.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Reinforce and protect the rural and historic character of the agricultural landscape with its distinctively sparse settlement character, scattering of isolated farmsteads, tiny hamlets and small villages. Protect and manage the longstanding agricultural land use for its important role in the local economy, for the habitats it supports and to ensure that it contributes to the regulation of soil and water quality.

For example by:

• Trying to keep the visual impact of new development to a minimum – for example, by careful design and location of new development and by planting native trees to screen new housing, stable or infrastructure developments.
• Enhancing the rural character by avoiding excessive road signage out of keeping with the undeveloped nature of the NCA, and where possible using a traditional style of sign to maintain the sense of place and history.
• Encouraging new buildings and new conversions to match the local vernacular of local sandstone and slate, including their grounds, and using an understanding of local forms and patterns of architecture to inspire any new development.
• Conserving the area’s varied traditional architecture, particularly houses and farmsteads in local stone. Ensuring that the repair, restoration or conversion of vernacular buildings is carried out with due regard to this historic interest using local and appropriate materials, styles and detailing.
• Encouraging the use of traditional farming methods, where appropriate, such as hedge laying and leaving headlands in the fields.
• Continuing to provide food and support farming at a sustainable level with grazing levels that lead to improved soil quality, reduce soil erosion and benefit biodiversity.
• Considering the impact of highly visible crops such as miscanthus and oilseed rape within the landscape and encouraging sensitive positioning of such crops, where practical.
• Keeping alive the local traditions and skills that contribute to both sense of place and history of this landscape.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Sustainably manage the high visitor pressure associated with this distinctive landscape to ensure that the numerous recreation, education, access and health opportunities continue to be enjoyed by the local community and visitors alike.

For example by:

• Promoting access to the natural environment across the area – making the most natural, historic, inspirational and tranquil places available to all.
• Maintaining and improving multi-user links between settlements, both in and near the area, and the open heath, wooded valleys and the rolling fields, utilising and extending the existing network of public rights of way.
• Managing, and where possible reducing, the number of cars being driven in the small lanes around and over the plateau by creating adequate infrastructure to cater for the need without damaging the landscape.
• Gathering survey information to identify the impact of visitor trends and access routes on designated conservation sites; investigating re-routing if required.
• Developing new, sustainable access routes to historical sites and other areas of interest as part of a cohesive network of educational and inspirational access provision.
• Reducing erosion from car parks by placing boulders along their boundaries and ensuring that the infrastructure is adequate for the task.
• Encouraging sensitive use of the Quantocks landscape, including promoting the use of designated footpaths and bridleways to reduce erosion, and highlighting the damage caused by legal and illegal vehicle access, such as by 4×4 vehicles and quad bikes.
• Providing local guided walks and circular routes to ensure that visitors and local residents benefit from the wealth of historic and geological assets; working with local communities and parish councils to ensure that routes are suitable and user friendly and are not detrimental to the natural environment.
• Exploring opportunities to work with partners and organisations supporting volunteering in the natural environment – to help connect people with the natural environment, increase people’s knowledge of the unique biodiversity and special features of the area, and to maintain, enhance and promote the biodiversity and natural features of the area.