92 - Rockingham Forest : 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: Extend the area and connectivity of broadleaved woodland, individual trees and hedgerows in the core Rockingham Forest area, seeking to enhance historic landscape character and biodiversity and increasing the potential for timber, biomass, access and recreation, while helping to regulate the impacts of climate change and maintaining and improving water and soil quality.

For example by:

• Supporting the planting of new broadleaved woodlands that are well integrated with the surrounding landscape and do not impact negatively upon the integrity of other sites of biological, geological or historical interest. New woodlands should connect existing ancient woodland and historic parkland sites and provide both biodiversity and recreational opportunities.
• Developing and promoting mechanisms for the re-introduction of cost- effective ancient woodland management and managing recent woodlands similarly to enhance their biological and structural diversity in the long term. This should include reinstating the use of rotational coppice systems, especially where neglected in ancient woodlands, by supporting the establishment of markets for coppice system produce.
• Addressing the impact the deer population has on the capacity for woodland regeneration and structural and biological diversity.
• Supporting partnership initiatives that seek to re-introduce appropriate management of neglected woodland rides and glades to provide suitable habitat for expansion of the black hairstreak butterfly and other woodland fauna and flora. This includes establishing new woodlands and shelterbelts to provide a network along which the butterflies can disperse across the National Character Area (NCA).
• Supporting initiatives that replace coniferous monoculture plantations with mixed-species woodlands as commercial crops reach maturity, releasing quantities of timber to stimulate the local woodland economy.
• Looking for opportunities to extend and enhance the public rights of way network and to create other areas of permissive access. In particular, where new development is planned, looking for opportunities to establish green infrastructure links out into the surrounding countryside and woodlands. Offering local communities and visitors alike opportunities to learn more about and get involved with the local woodland environment.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Maintain and enhance the quality of natural sites of interest across the area, and particularly within the farmed landscape, seeking to realise opportunities to strengthen ecological networks and increase the quantity and quality of semi-natural habitat mosaics and geodiversity sites, providing additional benefits to recreation and so enhancing visitors’ experiences and understanding as well as the local economy.

For example by:

• Looking for opportunities to work in partnership across the environmental, business and voluntary sectors to increase the quality, quantity and connectivity of wildlife sites in the NCA. Supporting the establishment of new networks which incorporate isolated wildlife sites and establishing a variety of new habitats – such as lowland grasslands, flood plain meadows, hedgerows and scrub – to best reflect the character of the local landscape.
• Seeking opportunities to enhance the farmed landscape by creating more semi-natural habitats (such as grasslands, scrub, field margins and hedgerows), including provision of habitats for pollinators and species that could assist in the control of crop pest species and establishing ecological networks, especially utilising riverine and woodland corridors. This will help to protect soils, improve water quality and enhance biodiversity.
• Continuing to implement the management plan for Barnack Hills and Holes Special Area of Conservation, seeking to further enhance its ecological and geological value, looking for opportunities to create an accessible, non- agricultural buffer around its fringe to help absorb recreational pressures, and closely involving the local community in its long-term care.
• Looking for opportunities to enhance the quality, quantity and connectivity of lowland limestone grasslands – including improved management regimes, provision of non-arable buffers to existing grasslands and the creation of new meadows using existing species-rich grasslands as a seed source that might help to connect isolated sites in the long term. Examine the feasibility of establishing a viable regional grazing livestock resource to manage the meadows.
• Supporting the establishment of new broadleaved woodland areas that connect existing ancient woodland sites and provide landscape, biodiversity and recreational benefits.
• Conserving and enhancing the geological, intellectual accessibility and biodiversity of abandoned limestone quarries and ironstone workings, incorporating geological sites into any ecological networks.
• Promoting important geological features by making links between geology, landscape and industrial and cultural heritage, reflecting the fact that geology has played a major role in shaping the landscape, providing an iron industry and the building stones that characterise the area.
• Recognising that landscape and biodiversity in the NCA are key attractions for visitors and are important for recreation and creating a sense of place that has intrinsic and societal value and can be interpreted to enhance recreational experience.
• Promoting the health and wellbeing benefits, recreational and educational opportunities afforded by the rights of way network, accessible local woodlands and other wildlife sites. Offering local communities opportunities to enjoy and take action to improve and care for their local green spaces.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Manage and enhance the distinctive elements that contribute to the overarching sense of place and history of the Rockingham Forest area. Seek to retain its predominantly rural character and core areas of tranquillity while planning to accommodate sensitively designed new development, including functional green infrastructure.

For example by:

• Limiting the visual impact of new housing, agricultural and energy infrastructure developments by ensuring that they are appropriate in terms of design and scale and sited so that they do not intrude visually upon the open landscape or distinctive landmarks.
• Encouraging the use of innovative architectural and planning solutions that take inspiration from local distinctiveness and character while utilising eco-friendly and high-quality design and, where appropriate, locally sourced building materials.
• Seeking to prevent development coalescence, ensuring that separation is maintained between the urban fringe and surrounding settlements. Maintaining the dispersed settlement pattern of small, nucleated, generally stone-built villages along sheltered valleys.
• Planning for new green infrastructure links, such as appropriately sited woodland and hedgerow corridors, to screen and soften the visual impact of new developments.
• Preparing and implementing historic parkland management and restoration plans as appropriate, including the smaller parkland landscapes which are often more vulnerable to neglect.
• Maintaining and enhancing the characteristic networks of hedgerows and drystone walls that enclose the landscape and display the rectilinear pattern of enclosures set within a more sinuous pattern of older enclosures, winding lanes and watercourses. Encouraging replanting of hedgerows and hedge-laying, establishing a programme for the ongoing replacement of mature hedgerow trees and reinstating priority drystone walls found particularly in the north of this area.
• Maintaining and enhancing the historical and biodiversity interests of remnant ridge-and-furrow ploughland that often survives around the fringes of settlements on permanent pasture. Seeking to retain and enhance their interrelationship to historic buildings and farmsteads.
• Expanding the public rights of way network, especially near to where people live and visit, to offer better opportunities for informal exploration of the NCA. In particular, increasing green infrastructure links to and from urban areas such as Corby and Kettering out to the recreational areas in the centre of the NCA would help to encourage more sustainable exploration of the local countryside on foot, by bike and on horseback.
• Enhancing the intellectual accessibility of the area’s many historical, cultural and natural assets, including the history of Rockingham as a Royal Hunting Forest, the many historic houses and parklands, the history and values of its National Nature Reserves, and the importance of the area for its notable species such as the red kite and black hairstreak butterfly.
• Growing and strengthening the local visitor economy and infrastructure, in a manner which is sympathetic to the rural nature and tranquillity of the area.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Enhance the functionality, biodiversity and historic features of the many small rivers and streams that cross the Rockingham Forest area. Seek to strengthen their contribution to regulating water flow and quality in the Nene and Welland catchments, enhance their role as landscape features, and improve riparian corridors for wildlife and recreation.

For example by:

• Identifying opportunities within the Nene and Welland catchments to create and extend semi-natural habitats (such as lowland flood meadows and reedbeds) to enhance biodiversity, slow down the movement of water in the system, hold back water in peak flow events and so reduce flood risk downstream, and improve water quality and aquifer recharge.
• Encouraging the adoption of agricultural land management practices that reduce diffuse pollution, slow run-off rates and reduce soil erosion to improve water quality and thus biodiversity. This could include creating rough grassland buffer strips along water corridors, planting riverside willows and creating small wet meadow or carr areas on marginal low-lying agricultural land.
• Looking for opportunities to manage and enhance locally important historic riparian features (such as wet meadows, pollards and ponds) that are becoming increasingly rare within the area’s river valleys.
• Looking for ways to enhance the recreational opportunities offered by riparian corridors, creating permissive access routes that link to the existing public rights of way network and seeking to give people access out to the wider countryside from residential areas.