LCA5F Wallop Brook River Valley Floor

Landscape Strategy and Guidelines

The Wallop Brook Valley Floor contains nationally significant water meadows and considerable extant remains of its historic landscape within a rich landscape pattern. The overall strategy is therefore to conserve and enhance the small scale water meadow and historic character of Wallop Brook Valley Floor.

Land Management

Landscape Distinctiveness

Maintain the intimate pastoral landscape pattern

Maintain the characteristic water channel and drainage ditches, millstreams and pools

Agriculture

Encourage management of traditional water meadows and reintroduce management of farmland as seasonally wet pastures where appropriate

Resist change from pasture to arable

Discourage merging of remaining smaller fields

Hedgerows

Encourage traditional methods of hedge management

Maintain hedgerow field boundaries

Woodland and Trees

Management of the pollards and lines of poplar, alder and willow

Encourage the retention of hedgerow trees and individual specimens in the landscape

Conserve valley floor wet woodland and promote good woodland management

Biodiversity

Conserve, enhance and manage riparian habitats

Encourage agricultural management that will protect and enhance remnant unimproved grasslands

Protect the water from further damage from pollution, soil erosion and construction projects

Seek opportunities for wetland creation and ditch reinstatement

Avoid manicuring of riverbanks

Historic Landscapes

Maintain valley floor enclosures that run through the heart of the village of Broughton

Land Use and Development

Built Developments

Avoid development up onto valley sides

Avoid loss of separate identity of existing settlements through coalescence and homogeneous design

Infrastructure

Avoid suburbanisation arising from the introduction of inappropriate highway measures

Avoid loss of landscape features through highway improvements

Recreation, Tourism and Access

Seek opportunities for additional access to the river for the public

Volume 1: LCA5F Landscape Character Types and Areas