28 - Vale of York : 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: Identify opportunities within the existing agricultural systems to enhance landscape character and create a functioning ecological network to safeguard future food provision, retain soil quality and reduce soil erosion and deliver benefits for biodiversity, carbon storage and climate regulation.

For example by:

• Managing, restoring and thickening hedgerows, as well as replacing and planting new hedgerow trees to create species-rich hedgerows. This will help to create a network across the agricultural landscape which enhances sense of place and creates wildlife corridors.
• Encouraging sustainable agricultural practices that enhance the delivery of an increased range of ecosystem services from the land to increase soil quality, reduce soil erosion and improve water quality and management. Practices such as increased organic matter input, undersowing and inclusion of grassland into rotation will preserve the quality of the soils for future food production.
• Restoring field ponds and other features such as ditches, dykes, small woodlands and shelterbelts, to ensure that they are being adequately managed for their contribution to the landscape and biodiversity. This will help to maximise their contribution to the permeability of the landscape and their role as stepping stones connecting larger areas of habitat.
• Encouraging increased winter water storage in the agricultural sector to help it to be more self-sufficient and less reliant on more traditional sources of water supply.
• Retaining existing copses of woodland and bringing many back into active management along with shelterbelts and small woodlands to improve carbon storage levels, aid water infiltration and reduce wind erosion.
• Encouraging agricultural practices that support farmland birds and provide habitats for insects and pollination, such as diverse field margins and weedy stubble on fields.
• Incorporating miscanthus and short rotation coppice into the landscape with particular consideration to landscape character, avoiding semi-natural habitats such as heathland and wetlands, sites with high potential for shallow-buried heritage assets and areas of historic field patterns.
• Minimising the disturbance and damage to archaeological sites resulting from agricultural practices, including the evidence of bronze-age to Romano-British settlement on the western fringe.
• Strengthening historic field systems and patterns through hedgerow restoration and management, especially the older field patterns around villages.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Manage and enhance the network of rivers and important wetland habitats within the Vale, increasing the landscape’s ability to naturally and sustainably manage flood and drought risk and provide other ecosystem services while recognising the needs of individual species and habitats and increasing the resilience of wildlife to climate change.

For example by:

• Restoring, extending and re-linking wet heathland habitat, natural washlands, valley mires, fens and swamps, fen meadows and drainage dykes to connect wetland habitat, particularly where appropriate in the river flood plains of the Ouse, the Derwent, the Wharfe, the Ure, the Nidd and the Foss – this may also assist in flood risk management.
• Encouraging new riparian and flood plain woodland that can increase the natural storage of carbon, reduce peak flow events and provide a potential future source of fuel, as well as enhance biodiversity and sense of place while retaining the value of grassland and wetland habitats.
• Restoring natural river courses and fluvial processes to increase the opportunities for slowing flood flows and for habitat creation, and to strengthen the contribution of the river valleys to the landscape.
• Seeking opportunities to provide natural flood risk management options upstream of frequently flooded areas and to reduce flooding in urban centres.
• Encouraging management of ditch networks that takes account of both flood risk management requirements and biodiversity opportunities through re-linking fragments and through sympathetic vegetation management.
• Maintaining undeveloped flood plains by encouraging inappropriate development away from flood plains if it could lead to a loss of semi- natural habitats.
• Seeking opportunities to revert arable farmland to permanent pasture in flood plains to reduce soil erosion and diffuse water pollution. This is particularly important in the catchment sensitive farming priority catchments of the Yorkshire Derwent and the Yorkshire Ouse, Nidd and Swale.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Increase the network of species-rich meadows, pastures, fields and hedgerows, ensuring that they and the wider farmed environment are managed to reduce rates of diffuse pollution and improve water quality. Extend and enhance heathland sites on areas of sandy soil for the benefit of biodiversity, as well as enhancing sense of place.

For example by:

• Preventing further loss of semi-natural grasslands through improvement, and managing stocking regimes to minimise compaction and aid water infiltration.
• Conserving, extending and re-linking ‘ings’ meadows on the river flood plains, unimproved wet grasslands, and unimproved and semi-improved meadows and pastures.
• Creating grassland buffer strips in arable areas (around fields, watercourses and drainage ditches) linked to the wider grassland resource to create a grassland habitat network.
• Enhancing and creating field margins and hedgerows to create a network that increases connectivity between other areas of semi- natural habitat through the agricultural landscape.
• Managing and creating areas of semi-natural habitat to connect larger areas of biodiversity value and to create a permeable landscape for species migration and movement across stepping stones and a network of less hostile habitats through the arable landscape.
• Creating buffer habitats around areas of high biodiversity value and river systems to protect them from nutrient run-off.
• Restoring, extending and re-linking heathlands on the glacial sands to achieve a strong mosaic of habitats at different stages of succession, linking with existing habitats of high wildlife value.
• Encouraging heathland habitat creation after conifer plantations are felled where these plantations have been planted on former heathland sites.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Protect the historic and cultural features of the Vale, in particular the traditional settlement patterns of remaining villages and the evidence of previous settlements that provide a strong sense of place.

For example by:

• Ensuring that new development, redevelopment and land use changes do not detract from the rural feel of the National Character Area (NCA), through selection of appropriate materials and development design.
• Encouraging development design that reduces flood risk, improves water quality and creates and restores semi-natural habitats that are functional as part of the wider landscape and provide opportunities for increased access and recreation.
• Maintaining the distinctive linear form of village settlements, with buildings set back behind wide grass verges and village greens, ponds, village churches, streams and mature trees; and seeking opportunities to improve the way in which village greens and urban commons such as the York Strays are managed.
• Conserving and enhancing local vernacular (mottled brick and pantile roofs) through restoration of traditional farmsteads, farm buildings and associated features (including traditional farm orchards) and use of traditional materials in conservation projects.
• Protecting and restoring remaining features of previous settlements, for example evidence of Roman settlement including forts, signal stations and roads and the medieval to 18th-century masonry bridges, traditional farmsteads and farm buildings that add interest and character to the landscape.
• Promoting sustainable land use to protect existing historic features and retain field patterns and their place in the landscape, and promoting educational visits and increasing educational access to and interpretation of historic buildings and archaeological sites.
• Identifying and enhancing archaeological and historical elements of the landscape to support habitat and access restoration work.
• Protecting and managing parkland associated with country houses, for example Rufforth Hall Park, Beningbrough Hall and Bilton Hall, to manage vistas and preserve veteran trees and to protect the historic elements and enhance natural features through selective planting and conservation.
• Preserving historic features, including dispersed brick farmsteads and those relating to shrunken settlements, moated sites in the south of the NCA, former medieval grange farms and 19th- and 20th-century military remains such as airfields and crash sites.
• Identifying opportunities to increase public access in the NCA and create new circular routes or links to existing rights of way, particularly the Yorkshire Wolds Way, the Ebor Way and the Trans Pennine Trail long-distance routes; and seeking opportunities to link access with the green space network and existing sites of semi-natural habitat where appropriate.
• Conserve the tranquillity of the Vale through sympathetic design and development plans, in particular minimising light spill through careful lighting design to retain the ‘undisturbed’ feel of the NCA and to lessen the development impact on the more rural areas.

SEO 5

SEO 5: Manage and protect the City of York to ensure that the sense of place and sense of history are maintained and are linked to wider opportunities for recreation for both local people and visitors.

For example by:

• Managing pressure for development outside the urban fringe, with development in the wider countryside and smaller settlements occurring, especially around the City of York, to maintain important views into historic features within the city and to retain the settlement patterns.
• Advocating the definition of development limits around York to ensure the enhancement of the setting of the historic city as the dominant settlement within the Vale.
• Extending and enhancing access between the City of York and the wider countryside, linking with long-distance trails and areas of important natural habitat.