30 - Southern Magnesian Limestone : 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 the underlying geology and range of historic landscape features, including the extensive Palaeolithic, Neolithic and bronze-age monuments, as part of the wider landscape and the evidence and time-depth of the area’s historic evolution. Increase opportunities to improve access to, understanding of and enjoyment of historic features within the landscape, as well as their links to biodiversity and underpinning geodiversity.

For example by:

• Protecting the historic environment for its contribution to local character and sense of identity and as a framework for habitat restoration and sustainable development.
• Conserving and interpreting archaeological earthworks and sub-surface archaeology, while recognising the potential for undiscovered remains.
• Encouraging appropriate management of archaeological sites, including arable reversion to grassland, scrub management and minimum till.
• Protecting the settings of archaeological features, especially the internationally significant Palaeolithic finds at Creswell Crags, and the grouping of Neolithic and bronze-age monuments between Boroughbridge and Catterick, and encouraging appropriate land management practices on adjacent land.
• Restoring and managing historic parklands so that the integrity of their historic interest is retained, including key elements such as buildings, follies, walks and vistas, while also providing accessible environments for the 21st century.
• Protecting the setting of designed parklands, including vistas in and out of the parks.
• Conserving and restoring features such as stone walls and stone gateposts.
• Maintaining the diversity of geology and traditional buildings which contribute to the National Character Area can be achieved by using and promoting traditional materials such as limestone and red pantiles, and also maintaining traditional skills in walling, building repair and construction.
• Increasing awareness of the rich history of the area by providing access and interpretation where possible, such as for the Neolithic and bronze-age features between Bedale and Ferrybridge and their landscape setting.
• Increasing awareness of the more recent history of the area by providing further access and interpretation of the many designed parklands and estates, where appropriate, bringing attention to the links with wealth generation in industrial areas to the west.
• Raising awareness of the more recent industrial heritage of the Southern Magnesian Limestone, including both the influence of the textile industry (for example in Sutton-in-Ashfield, Kirkby-in-Ashfield and Hucknall) and the deep mines on the concealed coalfield which have left a legacy of mineral lines, reclaimed heaps and colliery villages as part of the landscape in areas such as Shireoaks in Nottinghamshire and Shirebrook in Derbyshire.
• Ensuring that important geological exposures are retained and made accessible, where appropriate.
• Bringing attention, through interpretation, to the relationships between geology and subsequent land uses and development patterns in the area, for instance spas and breweries.
• Raising awareness of the importance of geological features that have not been designated to date but have importance in the local landscape setting.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Protect and manage existing semi-natural habitats, including grasslands, wetlands and woodlands; and increase the area of semi-natural habitats, restore and create new areas, and create networks and links between habitats, to make their ecology more resilient and to afford increased movement of species.

For example by:

• Protecting and managing existing fragments of semi-natural grassland habitats, especially the nationally scarce Magnesian Limestone grassland, and ensuring that they are under sound management, with appropriate grazing.
• Ensuring that existing woodlands are well managed, including protecting them from grazing and reinstating traditional coppice management to improve the structural and species diversity of native woodland. Appropriate management will ensure that the woodlands continue as features within the landscape, providing timber and wood fuel, as well as enhancing biodiversity and especially supporting the conservation of the dormouse population.
• Promoting the use of management practices to encourage native species development and the value of parkland trees, veteran trees and other woodland designed landscapes.
• Restoring, expanding and linking fragments of unimproved limestone and neutral grasslands, for instance with grassland strips along watercourses and field margins, and managing them effectively through, for example, appropriate grazing.
• Expanding areas of woodland cover, in particular on steeper slopes on valley sides, on degraded land and in connection with new development, using native species as far as possible, especially, where appropriate, large-leaved lime, which is nationally scarce.
• Encouraging the widening of the range of habitats within arable areas, including introducing permanent grassland margins along watercourses and field edges, and linking these to the wider grassland resource where possible.
• Protecting existing wetlands from further drainage and from diffuse pollution and nutrient or sediment run-off by establishing permanent grass buffer strips, and bringing adjacent land under appropriate management.
• Securing expansion of wetland habitats such as lowland fen, flood plain grazing and wet woodlands, to make them more robust and to develop ecological networks, corridors and stepping stones.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Protect the overall rural landscape and maintain its highly tranquil quality, managing the arable landscape to ensure the continued production of quality crops while also enhancing landscape features such as field boundaries and improving biodiversity, soil quality, reduction of soil erosion, water quality and flood risk management.

For example by:

• Ensuring that the expansive views along the open ridge, and the contrasts with the narrow valleys and wooded areas, are retained.
• Using semi-natural land cover to enhance landform features, particularly in gorges and dry valleys.
• Encouraging the introduction of permanent grassland margins on steep slopes and along field edges and watercourses, to form links between grasslands and other semi-natural habitats, and to reduce soil erosion, diffuse pollution and nutrient run-off.
• Encouraging agricultural practices such as introducing fallow into rotations, overwintering stubble and conservation headlands to increase the organic content of the soil and to provide refuges for arable weeds and food for farmland birds.
• Encouraging the management of nutrient inputs to ensure that no surplus nutrients enter the groundwater.
• Bringing hedgerows and hedgerow trees into sound management so that they fill out and form valued features within the landscape, providing more structural shelter for wildlife, and are acting as corridors or stepping stones with the arable landscape.
• Encouraging the management of land adjacent to wetlands and to other semi-natural habitats so that their biodiversity interest is protected and enhanced, by avoiding inappropriate land management, nutrient and sediment run-off, and diffuse pollution.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Promote the successful incorporation of any future major land use changes, directing them where they can enhance the existing landscape and seeking optimum design to obtain the greatest net benefits, such as to minimise visual impact on the wider landscape, incorporating green infrastructure and creating new access to enhance recreational opportunity for people to experience wildlife.

For example by:

• Ensuring that new strategic plans for the long-term restoration and management of minerals sites improve local landscape character, enhance and promote geodiversity features and encourage the expansion of appropriate semi-natural habitats, linking with adjacent features and habitats where possible.
• Using traditional local materials for the repair and restoration of vernacular buildings and stone walls.
• Seeking opportunities to expand flood storage areas along the river corridors, especially the Don and Dearne, and establishing a range of wetland habitats such as permanent wet grassland and wet woodland.
• Seeking opportunities to restore rivers to their natural courses, especially along the headwaters of the Erewash, to reduce the energy of flood flows and allow natural geomorphological processes to take place.
• Ensuring that new development incorporates networks of green infrastructure that increase the permeability of the built environment where appropriate, maintains landscape character, and not only enhances biodiversity but also allows for connection between habitats and species movement.
• Improving access into rural areas from existing and new settlements, in particular using paths along river corridors and designed parklands, where appropriate, and creating links with the Trans Pennine Trail.
• Protecting the contrasts between the pockets of relative tranquillity and more active areas through careful control of development.
• Minimising light spill at night through careful lighting design.
• Minimising visual intrusion caused by development, for example warehouses in the A1 corridor, through use of recessive colours, designing to appropriate volume and mass and incorporating green roofs and green infrastructure.
• Encouraging the use of traditional local materials and colours combined with high-quality new design and development.