23 - Tees Lowlands : 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 and enhance the unique landscape of the Tees Estuary with its mosaic of internationally important intertidal, wetland and brownfield habitats.

For example by:

• Protecting the remaining areas of intertidal flats, dynamic dune systems, salt marsh, and coastal and flood plain grazing marsh, and ensuring that they are managed to maintain and enhance their unique ecology (and the international importance of the wetland system to the vast assemblage of waterfowl).
• Seeking to minimise the detrimental effect that activities such as dredging may have on the integrity of intertidal habitats, and ensuring that future developments are well managed and recognise the importance of intertidal and brownfield habitats.
• Allowing the extent of intertidal habitats and semi-natural dune systems to shift in response to the dynamic processes of erosion and accretion, within defined sections of the coast.
• Seeking opportunities for creation of new areas of wetland and intertidal habitat where appropriate, for instance through managed realignment schemes.
• Improving understanding and interpretation of coastal geological features such as the Hartlepool Submerged Forest and the Lower Jurassic exposures at Redcar.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Incorporate semi-natural habitats within the farmed environment, and use innovative farming techniques in order to improve the value of food provision alongside biodiversity, flood water storage capacity, and the ability of the landscape to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

For example by:

• Maintaining and enhancing networks of semi-natural habitat within the farmed environment such as species-rich meadows, uncultivated field margins, hedgerows and ponds.
• Increasing the number of hedgerow trees, actively managing hedgerows using techniques such as coppicing and ‘gapping up’, and improving the connectivity of field boundaries.
• Allowing the River Tees and its tributaries to re-engage with natural fluvial processes by restoring them to their natural courses where possible, maintaining vegetated buffers along watercourses to reduce sediment run-off, and protecting natural flood plains as permanent pasture in order to reduce the scale of flood risk downstream.
• Restoring ditches, watercourses and areas of fenland and carr habitat in the Skerne carrs area, and working with farmers to manage water tables and increase the extent of grazing marsh, in order to provide flood storage capacity upstream from Darlington.
• Encouraging the use of agricultural techniques which will increase soil organic content and rates of water infiltration, such as the use of permanent grassland and the inclusion of fallow in crop rotation, and the selection of appropriate crops to minimise the requirement for irrigation and adapt to the effects of climate change.
• Increasing the extent of woodlands along riverbanks for their landscape and nature conservation value, and managing existing woodlands to increase the value of their biodiversity and provide wood fuel for local use.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Ensure that there is a well-connected network of high-quality green infrastructure throughout the Tees Lowlands which will enable people to understand and enjoy the natural environment, as well as providing a range of other benefits including biodiversity enhancement, food provision and flood risk mitigation.

For example by:

• Improving access provision along green corridors both within and between urban areas, linking existing corridors such as those along the river channels and disused railway lines, and creating new routes in order to form a strategic green infrastructure network.
• Ensuring that people living in existing urban areas as well as new housing sites have access to green infrastructure assets such as parks and other accessible open spaces, sports pitches and allotments and making best use of former industrial sites on the urban fringe to provide access to the countryside.
• Managing access within Teesmouth National Nature Reserve and Saltholme RSPB reserve, providing interpretation which allows people to experience and understand the importance of intertidal habitats while minimising disturbance to plants and animals.
• Conserving and managing historic parklands, including establishing new generations of trees in a way that is sensitive to their historic character, appropriately managing ancient and veteran trees and retaining deadwood fauna and flora, and provision of access opportunities where appropriate.

Additional opportunity 1

Additional opportunity 1: Protect and interpret the geological and historic interest and agricultural character of the Tees Lowlands NCA.

For example by:

• Providing interpretation of geological features such as the rock exposures at Redcar and peat deposits at Hartlepool, to aid understanding of the area’s geological history.
• Conserving and interpreting archaeological features showing evidence of a large medieval population based on an agricultural economy, such as the remnants of ridge-and-furrow farming and deserted villages, by encouraging agricultural practices such as shallow cultivation and reversion to permanent grassland.
• Conserving the settlement pattern of medieval villages with a row of farmsteads either side of a village green.
• Improving understanding and interpretation of historic features which demonstrate the strategic importance of the area, such as coastal defences, the fortified crossing of the River Tees at Piercebridge, and disused railway lines which supplied coal to the Tees Estuary.