Lowland River Terraces

Land Management

Protect and restore the natural character of watercourses and wetlands.
Restore natural conditions to floodplains where possible as part of integrated flood storage and landscape restoration schemes.
Fence rivers, streams and wetlands against livestock to prevent erosion and allow regeneration of bank-side vegetation.
Protect ponds from drainage or infilling. Restore former ponds and create new ponds on suitable sites.

Establish uncultivated margins along hedgerows, woodland edges and watercourses.
Avoid cultivation under the canopy of hedgerow and field trees.
Maintain and enhance semi-improved or wet pastures and meadows by adopting appropriate stocking levels or cutting regimes. Avoid improvements such as drainage, ploughing and reseeding. Limit the use of fertilisers and herbicides.
Restore diversity or wetness to improved pastures where possible – and particularly those of the floodplain and steeper bluffs.

Protect and conserve the broadleaved woodlands of steep riverside bluffs, incised denes and river banks.
Extend existing woodlands through natural regeneration or planting with native species of local origins – oak woods on bluffs and river terraces, alder on river banks and streamsides and on wet or seasonally flooded haughs.
Protect and maintain existing hedgerow trees and tree lines. Plant new hedgerow trees (Ash, Common Oak) or tag saplings to replace the maturing stock. Plant new tree lines – (Alder, Crack Willow) on river, ditch and streamsides.

Protect and maintain hedgerows. Renovate overgrown and gappy hedges by laying or coppicing and gapping up.
Allow trimmed hedges to grow higher and broader. Consider trimming every second or third year rather than annually.
Reinstate hedges where they have been replaced by fences.

Protect archaeological features including rigg and furrow from damaging activities such as cultivation, tree planting or poaching by stock.

Site new farm buildings close to existing buildings where possible, and reflect their scale, character and materials. Avoid steeply sloping sites.
Reduce the impact of larger modern buildings by careful selection of colour, breaking up mass and planting screening belts of native species.

Maintain the rural character of the landscape generally by protecting it from significant new built development.
Protect and conserve the character of villages by ensuring that new development respects their scale, structure and vernacular character.
Retain open green spaces within villages, and particularly village greens, old gardens and orchards, and tofts or garths.
Design any essential development so that it doesn’t compromise the natural hydrology of the floodplain.

Site communications masts on buildings in urban areas where possible – or close to existing buildings, tree groups or woodland edges in the open countryside. Avoid prominent local skylines and particularly the edges of river terraces.
Avoid ‘urban’ detailing and street lighting on country roads.

Tourism and recreational development should be undertaken in such a way as to avoid any urbanising influence on the landscape. New buildings should, where possible, reflect the scale, form, materials and vernacular detailing of traditional farm buildings in the area.
Facilities like chalets and caravan parks should only be developed or extended where there is a high degree of year-round visual containment – either from the topography or robust woodland cover – so that they do not detract from the rural character and scenic quality of the area.