91 - Yardley-Whittlewood Ridge : 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: Manage, enhance and extend the woodland resource around Salcey, Yardley Chase and Whittlewood, to support a strong sense of place and history, reduce soil erosion and flood risk, improve water quality, benefit biodiversity, support timber and biomass production and aid in climate regulation.

For example by:

• Promoting the management of existing woodlands, and new woodland planting where appropriate, to enhance the biodiversity and the recreational value of the woodland as well as helping to improve water quality and reduce soil erosion.
• Linking and expanding existing woodland areas such as Yardley Chase, Salcey and Whittlewood forests to improve habitat connectivity.
• Managing the woodland, parkland and coniferous plantations for their biodiversity and high recreational value as well as for their contribution to landscape character and climate regulation.
• Stimulating local markets for wood products, biomass and wood fuel to support sustainable woodland management and timber production.
• Exploring opportunities to bring unmanaged woodland into management to develop biomass production through active woodland management, for example through coppicing or as a by-product of commercial timber operations.
• Conserving, strengthening and restoring habitat links between woodland, hedgerows and historic parklands to maintain a continuous woodland network.
• Conserving ancient and veteran trees in hedgerows, historic parkland and tree avenues for their biodiversity and heritage value, planning for the provision of replacement veteran trees in the future.
• Conserving, restoring and managing the open areas of the forest (wide forest rides and ‘forest lawns’) to create a network of open habitat throughout the woodland for the benefit of the wide variety of species that rely on woodland edge and open habitat as well as for people who use the forest for recreation.
• Ensuring that the SSSI woodlands such as Odell Great Wood, Salcey and Whittlewood forests and Yardley Chase are managed to maintain and improve their condition.
• Promoting awareness of the important woodland habitats and species of the area and providing advice to landowners on appropriate management.
• Ensuring that populations of deer are managed to reduce the damage caused to the natural regeneration of the woodland when numbers are too high.
• Seeking opportunities to extend and link areas of woodland, where appropriate, to reduce flood risk, improve water quality and aid aquifer recharge.
• Conserving and managing ancient and veteran trees for the benefit of fauna (such as invertebrates dependent on dead or decaying wood).
• Maintaining, managing and extending the network of wooded habitat for dormice, breeding birds, bats and invertebrates.
• Increasing where possible, the area of woodland cover to help stabilise the soil, enhancing soil quality with organic matter and promoting soil fauna.

SEO 2

SEO 2: Protect, manage and promote the historic features and designed landscapes, including the registered parks and gardens, remnant Royal Hunting Forest and Grand Union Canal, to ensure that local distinctiveness is preserved, a sense of place and history is maintained and to provide improved interpretation and educational opportunities that will increase people’s understanding and enjoyment.

For example by:

• Protecting and enhancing key landscape attributes, such as the remnant Royal Hunting Forest, hedgerows and historic parkland that help to define a strong sense of history and place, and are important habitats supporting numerous species including breeding birds, bats and invertebrates.
• Encouraging the restoration and sustainable management of woodland and historic parklands.
• Protecting historic sites and features, such as ‘forest lawns’, woodbanks and boundaries, and moated sites.
• Promoting the restoration and good management of historic buildings, especially those that are listed and ‘at risk’.
• Promoting the use of local building stone and traditional local building materials to conserve the character of villages and historic buildings.
• Maintaining where possible the current nucleated settlement pattern of villages along the forest and ridge edges to give a strong sense of place.
• Restricting inappropriate development to help maintain village character.
• Limiting the visual impact of any new development and ensuring that it is sensitively designed and located.
• Promoting the recreational and educational opportunities offered by the geodiversity, historic features and designed landscapes of the NCA while conserving and enhancing them.
• Offering high-quality interpretation at key historic sites and designed landscapes, and providing improved interpretation and educational opportunities to increase people’s understanding and enjoyment.
• Encouraging a greater awareness of the area’s heritage by improving access to heritage assets and promoting appreciation of their local distinctiveness.

SEO 3

SEO 3: Manage and plan for the recreational use of the area’s woodlands, parkland and visitor attractions, and conserve the overall tranquillity of the area, including strategic views from the elevated landform of the Ridge over the surrounding landscape. Enhance access connections for people and wildlife by putting in place multi-functional green infrastructure networks, building on existing resources such as the Grand Union Canal and numerous cycle and walking routes to create strong access and ecological networks.

For example by:

• Managing the woodland, parkland and coniferous plantations for their biodiversity and high recreational value as well as their contribution to landscape character.
• Promoting the opportunities offered by historic features, for example the Grand Union Canal and Canal Museum, and the designed landscapes of the NCA, and providing improved interpretation and educational opportunities to increase people’s understanding and enjoyment.
• Managing visitor pressure and demand at key woodland sites, for example Salcey Forest, to ensure that demand can be accommodated without conflict between different users, and without causing adverse effects on the natural environment.
• Managing localised compaction and erosion in areas of high recreational pressure, for example within forested areas such as Salcey and Whittlewood and along the green lanes in north Bedfordshire.
• Promoting awareness and understanding of the area’s geodiversity and the impact it has on the landscape. Securing opportunities to access geological features and exposures, where appropriate, to increase the understanding and enjoyment of geodiversity.
• Maintaining, extending and promoting the use of the National Cycle Routes and the rights-of-way network.
• Ensuring that any new developments incorporate well-designed green infrastructure, to include improved access and recreation opportunities for local communities and visitors as well as improving health and well- being by accessing local green space.
• Working with local planning authorities to ensure that development is appropriately designed to minimise the impacts of noise and
  light pollution to protect the tranquillity of the area, for example by removing obtrusive features such as signage, lighting and poles, enhancing the wooded peripheries of settlements, and increasing
  tree planting around new developments to help filter noise and light pollution and enhance ‘undisturbed’ views from the surrounding countryside.
• Providing improved interpretation and educational opportunities to increase people’s understanding and enjoyment of the area.
• Maintaining and managing strategic and elevated views across the surrounding countryside and lower lying claylands to improve legibility of the Ridge and to provide sense of place and connection with the surrounding natural environment.

SEO 4

SEO 4: Manage agricultural practices and strengthen semi-natural habitats, particularly those near the Oolite aquifer and along watercourses, to protect and improve soil quality, reduce erosion, regulate water flow and improve water quality both in the aquifer and in watercourses and to help climate regulation.

For example by:

• Working with local farmers, landowners and managers to promote best practice through agri-environment schemes to promote biodiversity, address soil erosion and improve soil and water quality to continue the important service of food provision by sustainable means.
• Promoting management techniques and best practice grazing regimes, especially on the steeper slopes of the Ridge, to reduce localised soil compaction and erosion, and improve water infiltration.
• Seeking opportunities to extend and link areas of woodland, hedgerow and grassland to strengthen their resilience to changes in climate, help bind soils together and aid water infiltration, thus reducing flood risk.
• Implementing measures to control invasive non-native species to prevent or reduce damage to native species’ populations and habitats, for example to control the spread of Himalayan balsam along the River Kym and to promote biosecurity measures to prevent the spread of species such as Dikerogammarus villosus, an invasive freshwater shrimp.
• Managing hedgerows, field margins, road verges and the green lanes of north Bedfordshire to facilitate carbon storage as well as to provide structural diversity and a variety of flowering plants that support, in particular, farmland birds and pollinators.
• Improving habitat connectivity in the landscape by extending hedgerows, field margins and grassland to create good ecological networks in the landscape, support biodiversity, improve soil and water quality and help climate regulation.
• Encouraging the extension and improved connectivity of riparian habitats, including those in streams, such as flood plain grazing marsh and reedbeds along watercourses, for example the River Tove, to increase resilience to water shortages, filter out pollutants, help regulate water flows, aid aquifer recharge and support biodiversity.
• Creating and extending buffer strips along the rivers Tove, Kym, Til and Great Ouse to help filter sediments and pollution and to provide benefits for biodiversity.
• Encouraging the strengthening of hedgerows, particularly across steeper slopes, and the creation of grassland to help to slow the flow of water from the land and reduce run-off.
• Promoting the sustainable use of local water resources provided by the Oolite aquifer by commercial and domestic users to reduce the pressure on water resources in this NCA.
• Promoting green infrastructure within and around urban areas such as Towcester, Brackley, Bozeat and nearby Olney to help mitigate the impact of flooding.
• Encouraging the use of water efficiency measures and sustainable drainage schemes in planned new developments to help reduce run- off and flooding downstream in the River Great Ouse catchment.
• Supporting the management of water abstraction licences from the Oolite aquifer to ensure that water abstraction and poor water quality do not threaten wetland and riparian habitats.
• Working to reduce surface and groundwater pollution in the Upper Great Ouse catchment by managing farmland under the principles established by Catchment Sensitive Farming Project.