24 - Vale of Mowbray : 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 water resources of the Vale, in particular the aquifer and rivers, by supporting sustainable management of the farmed landscape, retaining important levels of food provision while protecting soils and water quality, and establishing networks of habitats including restoration of wetland habitats in the flood plain.

For example by:

• Working with the farming community to continue and enhance the provision of high-quality farmed produce in ways that optimise productivity, while protecting soils and water through good soil and nutrient management and crop selection including fallow and green manures, thereby also enhancing carbon storage and making a positive contribution to sense of place.
• Retaining semi-natural grasslands and managing all grasslands under sustainable grazing levels, seeking opportunities to expand areas of grassland, for instance along field margins, on flood plains and alongside watercourses.
• Ensuring good practice in nutrient and pesticide management, to encourage good soil structure and assist infiltration of rainwater and hence recharge of the major Sherwood Sandstone aquifer, while safeguarding the Drinking Water Protected Area.
• Conserving, extending and re-linking areas of semi-natural habitat (riparian meadows, unimproved wet grasslands, and semi-improved meadows and pastures) and other grasslands into a coherent habitat network, to enhance biodiversity and increase the holding capacity of the land in absorbing peak flows.
• Working with the farming community to restore a more natural morphology to rivers, especially the River Swale, allowing the river to re-connect with the flood plain where this will help to dissipate the volume and energy of peak flows, and contribute to the restoration of a network of wetland areas within the Vale.
• Managing and restoring trees in the farmed landscape, including hedgerows and hedgerow trees, to strengthen the wider habitat network and support pollination and pest regulation.
• In arable areas, introducing and managing features such as conservation headlands and pollen and nectar mixes, to encourage birds, invertebrates and rare arable plants, enhancing the habitat for pollinators and beneficial predators, while protecting soils and enhancing biodiversity and sense of place.
• In arable areas, creating grassland buffer strips around fields and watercourses, and seeking opportunities to revert arable land to permanent grassland, particularly in flood plains or areas of archaeological interest, linking these to the wider grassland habitat network.
• In riparian areas, encouraging management practices that will protect watercourses from diffuse sources of nutrients and sediment input, such as permanent grassland strips, tree planting, preventing livestock access to bank sides and minimising vehicle movements on wet soils, and continuing to promote improvements in farm infrastructure, waste management and waste water storm overflows, to reduce sources of pollution.
• Ensuring that the introduction of energy crops, such as miscanthus and short rotation coppice, is in keeping with local landscape character, can provide enhanced regulation of soil erosion, water supply and peak flows, is sited to avoid historic features and does not replace semi- natural or permanent grasslands.
• Working at catchment scale with neighbouring National Character Areas, identifying and encouraging habitat improvements and land management practice which will regulate the peak water flows experienced in the Vale and thus reduce flood risk to properties and crops within the Vale.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Manage and extend the presently limited native woodland cover throughout the Vale, to develop woodland habitat networks, enhance sense of place, and assist in managing erosion, peak flow events and carbon storage.

For example by:

• Retaining or restoring active management of existing woodlands, managing where appropriate for a range of benefits, including timber, carbon storage and regulating peak flows, while contributing to the habitat network, supporting woodland bird populations and strengthening local landscape character.
• Restoring ancient woodland sites where plantations have been introduced, increasing the native tree content of these and managing to encourage structural and species diversity, including ground flora and deadwood habitats.
• Maintaining and restoring hedgerows and hedgerow trees and game coverts as key features of the farmed landscape and important elements in the wider habitat network across the Vale.
• Ensuring that parklands are appropriately managed, retaining key historic features including specimen and veteran trees and grasslands, and reinstating wood pastures.
• Encouraging the planting of new riparian and flood plain woodland, in particular along the River Swale and its tributaries, restoring, extending and linking the semi-natural woodland network, and enhancing sense of place, while protecting areas of high-quality grassland and archaeological features.
• Restoring, extending and linking existing fragmented areas of broadleaved woodland and scrub on Vale sides, managing these as a habitat network to increase carbon storage, to help to regulate soil erosion and peak flows, and to enhance landscape character and sense of place

SEO 3

SEO 3: Protect and promote understanding and enjoyment of the Vale’s geological and historic legacy, the Roman antecedent of the A1 transport corridor, historic buildings, field patterns and parkland, thus enhancing sense of place and local character.

For example by:

• Working in partnership with local geologists and other interested parties, identifying, managing and interpreting geological and geomorphological features in the Vale, to inform their future conservation and increase wider awareness of their scientific importance and influence on the character of the area.
• Protecting sub-surface prehistoric and Roman archaeological features alongside the A1 and on the hilly edges of the area which are vulnerable to disturbance, by protecting them under permanent grassland or by reducing the depth of ploughing.
• Preserving visible historic features in the landscape, including medieval motte-and-bailey castles, settlement earthworks and ridge and furrow.
• Maintaining selected 20th-century military evidence including prisoner of war camps and airfields and associated structures, and providing access along with interpretation to enable people to understand their significance.
• Reducing the threat to historic monuments on the ‘at risk’ register by bringing them under appropriate management.
• Strengthening historic field systems and patterns through hedgerow restoration and management.
• Managing woodland to retain historic features, and seeking opportunities to reinstate traditional management practice such as coppicing.
• Protecting and managing parklands so that key historic features are retained, and providing access where possible.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Protect the pattern and character of scattered villages and farmsteads, ensuring that new development is based on sustainable resource use and contributes to sense of place, while limiting intrusion and loss of tranquillity in this rural area; ensure that green infrastructure is integral to new development in order to improve public access to, and enjoyment of, the landscape.

For example by:

• Maintaining the settlement pattern of Northallerton and Thirsk as the main towns, with small villages located on higher ground, and avoiding development on flood plains.
• Ensuring that new development is assimilated into the landscape and designed to minimise resource use, using techniques such as water harvesting and sustainable drainage systems, to protect the underlying drinking water aquifer.
• Ensuring that extractive industry or infrastructure development is assimilated into the landscape and optimises its contribution to restoring habitat networks and strengthening sense of place.
• Maintaining the distinctive linear form of villages with village greens and church towers where they act as prominent visual landmarks within the wider landscape.
• Conserving and enhancing local vernacular style through restoration and sustainable use of traditional farmsteads, farm buildings and cottages and use of traditional materials (mottled brick and pantile) in conservation and restoration projects.
• Seeking opportunities to create linear habitat networks around the transportation corridors, enhancing biodiversity and strengthening landscape character, while providing greater capacity to absorb noise and light, preventing its encroachment into less disturbed areas.
• Minimising light spill through careful lighting design, particularly in areas classified as undisturbed in the Campaign to Protect Rural England’s intrusion maps, such as along the eastern edge of the Vale, adjacent to the North York Moors National Park.
• Supporting the work of the North Yorkshire Local Access Forum in identifying opportunities to improve and extend the rights of way network, for example creating new circular routes or links to existing rights of way, particularly the Coast to Coast long-distance route which passes through the Vale of Mowbray.
• Maintaining views to the adjacent dales and moors which form a distinctive backdrop to the area.
• Seeking opportunities for educational access to historic farm buildings and other historic sites, and to interpret these features and the farmed environment.