83 - South Norfolk and High Suffolk Claylands : 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: Maintain and enhance the rural character of the landscape and the contrast between the arable plateau and pastoral river valleys by maintaining agricultural productivity and encouraging sustainable land management practices that protect and enhance the landscape, geodiversity and biodiversity assets while benefiting water quality and water availability, as well as the rural sense of place and of tranquillity.

For example by:

• Maintaining the mix of relatively small, individual landholdings with scattered small parkland estates; the remnant medieval ancient countryside with its irregular small fields with pollarded hedgerow trees and coaxial field patterns which mostly exist to the east of Scole; and the small-scale pasture and wetland vegetation in the shallow river valleys.
• Encouraging the maintenance and creation of field-edge/field-corner habitats such as grass margins, uncropped strips, hedges and ditches, trees and ponds in order to support rare arable weeds and farmland bird species such as yellowhammer, grey partridge and tree sparrow.
• Encouraging, where appropriate, the reversion from arable to permanent grassland and the creation of grass margins in arable fields on valley sides, to help to reduce soil erosion and sedimentation of watercourses, especially within the priority catchments.
• Encouraging sustainable farming practices and the diversification of cropping and livestock to support the continued production of food supplied to local and national markets and the financial security of rural businesses.
• Working with farmers and landowners to create ecological networks through the farmed landscape to benefit biodiversity (for example, by increasing farmland bird populations) and to enhance ecosystem services, such as by intercepting surface water to improve water quality and by providing more habitats for pollinator and pest-regulating species.
• Encouraging farmers to protect watercourses from water quality deterioration, reducing diffuse pollution by encouraging soil management improvements and the uptake of beneficial agri- environment schemes and options. Ensure compliance with regulations in nitrate vulnerable zones to manage fertiliser inputs.
• Working in partnership with farmers to encourage the appropriate design and sensitive siting of new on-farm water storage, which will help to reduce the impact of water abstraction and enhance biodiversity and landscape character.
• Enhancing soil condition through good soil management techniques that reduce erosion, improve productivity and have a positive effect on water quality. This can be achieved through reducing cultivation and soil compaction, creating grass margins in arable fields and restoring boundary hedgerows, which will also increase habitats for pollinators and pest-regulating species.
• Conserving and maintaining the high levels of tranquillity associated with much of the area, especially where there is little settlement or infrastructure intrusion.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Encourage measures that conserve and enhance the characteristic historic settlement patterns including notable village commons and greens, and historic features such as moated farmsteads and windmills, ensuring that access and educational opportunities are maximised; and ensure that the design and location of new developments add to the sense of place and history across the National Character Area (NCA).

For example by:

• Conserving and appropriately managing the built environment and the area’s traditional settlement patterns, and planning for well-designed new development inspired by local character, particularly within the market towns where new development is proposed, including Diss, Long Stratton and Wymondham.
• Promoting the use of traditional building materials as appropriate to enhance the significance and locally distinctive character of the area’s traditional architecture.
• Ensuring that local development frameworks recognise the importance of conserving and enhancing the landscape and the sense of history
  to help to reduce the likelihood of negative impacts from new developments.
• Supporting the use of historic and landscape characterisations to inform change, and encouraging their use in community-based planning to help to identify locally valued townscapes, rural landscapes and historic features.
• Investigating ways of securing better management of the heritage assets that contribute to the character of the area, particularly those that have been identified as ‘Heritage at Risk’.
• Recording traditional farm buildings prior to demolition or conversion, and listing/protecting those not recorded in previous listing surveys.
• Maintaining the distinctive character, settlement form and building materials of the villages and market towns. Improve their setting and settlement fringes through the allocation of new greenspace and woodland planting.
• Encouraging the retention and enhancement of historic features and heritage assets including their setting in the farmed landscape, for example moated farmsteads and the biodiversity of their moats, barns and other farm buildings, windmills and watermills, and churches.
• Conserving the distinctive medieval churches, such as Wymondham, North Lopham, Framlingham, Eye and Laxfield, and ensuring that their setting and visual presence in the landscape are retained for their contribution to sense of place.
• Conserving the distinctiveness of the rare surviving historic commons and greens, many of which have a valued flora (for example, Chippenhall, Mellis Hales and Old Buckenham). Limit the vehicular access points to such greens and conserve their distinctive settlement margins.
• Highlighting linear green boundaries which are at great risk of erasure through extension of gardens, roadside developments, road infrastructure and other development.
• Conserving and protecting the historic parklands and their houses/mansions, such as Thornham Magna, Helmingham Hall and Heveningham Hall.
• Retaining and restoring historic green lanes and former droveways, giving priority to fragmented sections and bridleways.
• Promoting the archaeological record and the value of geological sites and landscapes in preserving a record of past landscapes and links between historical sites, archaeological evidence/potential and the geological interest of the area, to achieve a wider understanding of the importance of the NCA.
• Providing interpretation and educational facilities to explain the geoheritage and heritage assets in the area.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Maintain and enhance the river valleys and their grazed flood plains, as well as the important valley fens and riparian habitats, for their contribution to bio- diversity networks, geodiversity, soil quality, water availability and regulating water flow and for their contribution to the traditional rural character of the area.

For example by:

• Conserving and managing the range of riverine and wetland habitats such as fens and wet woodland to enhance the ecological networks they form throughout the area and into neighbouring NCAs, to support rare species such as fen raft spider, Desmoulins’s whorl snail, otter and water vole.
• Working with landowners to protect, enhance and reinstate the area’s significant valley fens, particularly those under international designation in the Waveney Valley, and maximise opportunities to expand and link these habitats to enhance ecological networks, help to increase water quality, aid water flow management and provide habitat for breeding waders and overwintering wildfowl.
• Working with landowners to encourage land management practices that help to maintain and increase water infiltration and aid aquifer recharge, such as grassland on the valley sides and floors, to support spring-fed habitats and river flows, potable and irrigation water supply, and soil quality.
• Increasing the use of river valleys for flood storage, encouraging peat formation and habitat creation that strengthens the rural character.
• Working with landowners to help to reduce river bank erosion and improve water quality through managing livestock access to rivers and streams in order to prevent bank damage and increased sedimentation.
• Continuing to use agri-environment schemes to restore and re-create valley grassland ribbons, and discouraging tree planting and removing trees on existing ribbons, benefiting the landscape, semi-natural habitats, aquifer recharge, water quality and soil erosion reduction, as well as limiting flood risk.
• Ensuring that local development plans include the sustainable management of water resources and promote measures to reduce adverse impacts on water quality in the future, including the use of sustainable drainage systems.
• Protecting the archaeology and history of human settlement in the flood plain areas by encouraging appropriate non-intensive land management and reinstating permanent pasture where possible.
• Maintaining isolated ponds which are a characteristic feature of the clay plateau for their landscape and biodiversity value, particularly their populations of great crested newt.
• Continuing to restore mineral extraction sites to a variety of wetland habitats, for their multiple benefits for geodiversity, nature conservation, and recreational and landscape interests.
• Working in partnership to reduce threats posed by non-native species’ colonisation of the open water and riverine habitats.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Protect and enhance the area’s ancient semi-natural woodlands, copses, river valley plantations and ancient boundaries including hedgerows and hedgerow trees, through the management of existing and the creation of new woods and hedgerows to benefit biodiversity, landscape character and habitat connectivity, and for the benefits to soil erosion reduction, water infiltration and quality, timber provision and carbon storage.

For example by:

• Promoting appropriate management techniques, such as restoring coppice rotations in woodlands, to restore and enhance ancient woodland habitats as well as strengthening the historic character of these woods and increasing the provision of timber and coppice products.
• Creating and managing new small-to-medium-sized woods, particularly on the plateau/plateau edges, to compensate for known lost woods or portions of woods and restore existing ancient woodland to its original shape and boundary where appropriate.
• Encouraging the reinstatement of active management of existing farm woodlands where they have been neglected, promoting the use of wood fuel as a renewable energy as well as the carbon storage benefits of new woodland areas.
• Encouraging local businesses to increase appropriate-scale generation of heat, utilising woody biomass for woodchip boilers, where it
  is sustainable to do so, in turn bringing further opportunities for improved woodland management, while being mindful of locally valued landscape characteristics, habitats and species.
• Restoring hedgerows on significant previously hedged field boundaries (including by traditional coppicing, which will also be a source of wood fuel) and managing existing/restored hedgerows to aid reduction of soil erosion and provide biodiversity networks and for their contribution to sense of place and history in the agricultural landscape.
• Continuing the pollarding of oak and ash (chalara permitting), hornbeam and maple in hedgerows and willow in the river valleys to ensure the longevity of the trees, creating new pollards for the future to enhance the historic character of the landscape.
• Managing surviving elm in hedges by employing a tight cutting rotation and propagating and planting new elm trees for the future from Dutch elm disease survivors.
• Increasing the wooded character of the river valleys where appropriate and where there is no conflict with the historic landscape (for example, avoiding tree planting on traditional valley grasslands), to help to reduce soil erosion, benefit water quality, and aid water infiltration and water flow.
• Extending and linking woodland sites through the expansion and enhancement of semi-natural linear features such as hedgebanks, hedged lanes, grass verges and wooded shelterbelts, enhancing biodiversity and landscape character.
• Restoring traditional orchards, once a feature of settlements, with local varieties of fruit tree, to support the area’s sense of place and genetic diversity.
• Encouraging communities and schools to become involved in creating, conserving and enhancing local woods, by working with partners to promote volunteering opportunities.
• Creating new woodland as appropriate to screen new development and provide habitat and green infrastructure benefits.

Additional opportunity 1

Additional opportunity 1: Improve opportunities for people to access, enjoy and understand rural and historic landscape assets, ensuring that access and recreational resources are managed to be compatible with the tranquillity of the area, while providing a valuable health, education and access resource.

For example by:

• Supporting the delivery of access improvements as identified in the Suffolk County Council and Norfolk County Council Rights of Way Improvement Plan and the Greater Norwich Green Infrastructure Strategy, to provide sustainable access routes.
• Creating new access links within and between local communities and amenities and natural public greenspace, especially in areas of need as identified in Natural England access maps.
• Working with landowners and farmers to develop multi-user routes and improve route connectivity, characterised by good-quality surfacing, signage and solutions to route severance, to improve opportunities for people to access the countryside on foot, cycle and horse and with wheelchairs and pushchairs.
• Exploring working with partners and organisations that support volunteering in the natural environment, which provides opportunities for people to increase their knowledge and understanding of the local area, while also benefiting geodiversity, semi-natural habitats and species.
• Raising awareness of the important sensitive habitats and the wildlife that they support, such as species-rich grassland on greens and commons and valley fen habitats, through clear signposting and interpretation, to improve the quality of understanding and enjoyment of the natural environment.
• Encouraging local schools and community groups to become involved in projects and other educational opportunities to develop a better understanding of their natural and historical environment and to help to preserve it for the future.
• Creating access opportunities with consideration to minimising the risk of damage to landforms from recreation, particularly in the valleys, and promoting appreciation of the geological resource by local communities and visitors.
• Promoting links between geological sites, archaeological evidence and the biological interest of these areas, to achieve wider public understanding and enjoyment.
• Managing and further enhancing access and recreational opportunities which centre on enjoyment of the tranquil and deeply rural countryside via the network of quiet lanes, villages, footpaths, bridleways and watercourses, to facilitate and encourage access to the wider countryside for all users.
• Promoting access to, interpretation and understanding of less well- known sites and features as well as promoting access to features via established routes such as the Mid Suffolk Footpath and the Boudicca Way and Angles Way long-distance footpaths.