Biodiversity
Sand & Gravel Case Study

Needingworth Wetland Project, Cambridgeshire.
Hanson Aggregates

Hanson has been granted planning approval to create one of the largest new wetland habitats in Europe at Needingworth quarry in Cambridgeshire. The site will be managed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB).

The creation of new wetlands has been identified as a national priority in the UK Biodiversity Action Plan, endorsed by government. They are needed to safeguard threatened birds such as the bittern, reduced to 13 booming males in the UK in 1998, and to provide new habitat to off-set projected future loses of international important coastal wetlands through coastal erosion accelerated by sea level rise.

The site provides an exceptional opportunity to create a 700-hectare wetland, incorporating 460 ha of reedbed representing 40% of the UK's target for reedbed, and to demonstrate best practice in implementing a planning consent for extraction and restoration to nature conservation.

Planning History

In June 1994, Cambridgeshire Country Council granted planning approval for Hanson Aggregates to establish a major sand and gravel quarry covering some 945 hectares (2, 334 acres) near Needingworth village and to the north of Over village. This approved scheme of restoration would have seen the land progressively returned to agriculture at ground level at Needingworth and at low level on Over Fen.

During the planning process an alternative nature conservation scheme was suggested by English Nature, RSPB, Cambridgeshire Wildlife Trust, The Countryside Commission and The Environment Agency.

The initial sketch proposal focused on a range of habitat types created by partial flooding of the restored low-level agricultural area.

The 1994 planning consent included an obligation through legal agreement with Hanson that the company should prepare a feasibility study for the alternative scheme. The RSPB, with its extensive experience in nature reserve operation and management, made a considerable contribution to the study. The feasibility report highlighted the potential to restore up to 600 hectares as a reedbed wetland, capable of supporting population of nationally threatened species such as bittern.

A Wetland Past

The Fens is a unique and special area. It owes it existence to its origins as the nation's largest lowland wetland with impassable swamps, rich grazing and abundant fish and other wildlife. The links to this wetland past are strong and remain in the rich dark soils, the pattern of settlement, and in the wildness of the last remaining wetland fragments.

Wetlands are an increasingly scarce resource throughout the world. Within the Fens only a few large sites escaped drainage: Wicken and Woodwalton Fens are now recognised as internationally important wildlife habitats as Special Areas of Conservation (SAC). The large washlands of the Ouse and Nene rivers, which attract internationally important numbers of wildfowl species including Bewick's swan and wigeon, are designated under the RAMSAR convention. Smaller fragments, containing typical fenland wildlife, such as reed buntings and dragonflies, remain in every ditch and drain with reeds being the living sign of wetland past.

A Wetland Future

New wetlands can make a major contribution towards achieving UK biodiversity targets through securing the future of important wildlife habitats and species.

East Anglia is of outstanding importance because it contains a significant proportion of key wetland habitats that support some of our most threatened species. These include reedbeds (50% of the UK resource); swamp fen remnants such as Wicken and Woodwalton Fens (80%), and seasonally flooded grassland such as the Ouse Washes and Nene Washes (15%).

The Fens are important because of:

• the internationally important populations of wintering ducks and swans that use the large washlands and surrounding farmlands;
• the internationally important remnants of former swamp fens, which support a number of plants and invertebrates found nowhere else in the UK;
• the nationally important populations of breeding waders concentrated on the Ouse and Nene Washes in spring and summer;
• the extensive network of farm ditches and larger drains, which provide refuges for relict fen plans and invertebrates, and support characteristic birds including reed warblers;
• its potential to create new wetland.

The UK Biodiversity steering group report, adopted by government in 1996, identifies those species and habitats of highest priority for conservation action in the UK. The Fens supports, or has the potential to support, a number of priority species including otter, water vole, bittern, fen violet and swallowtail butterfly. Therefore the area is an important focus for conservation action.

Since 1600, some 97 per cent of the original wetlands have been lost and species have been confined to smaller and smaller sites. Some, such as bittern and the spectacular swallowtail and large copper butterflies, have disappeared altogether as fenland breeding species. The loss of habitats places more species at risk and increases the need for expensive specialist management. More habitat is needed to sustain these remnant populations for which the Fens is so important.

External factors, such as the threat of accelerated rates of coastal erosion on the East Anglian coast also have implications for the Fens. Anticipated sea level rise and increased storminess are likely to lead to accelerated losses of freshwater wetlands of national and international importance on the East Anglian coast.

Creating new habitat suitable for important species is a technical challenge. Pioneering habitats such as reedbeds and seasonally flooded grassland are relatively easy to create and can quite rapidly support key wetland species such as wildfowl. The creation of other habitats such as peat based fen is a far greater challenge, as this requires conditions where new peat can form and accumulate over many centuries. Restoring fens from low level mineral workings may provide the only real opportunity for long-term creation.

The Planning Process

Following extensive consultation with statutory and non-statutory bodies, Hanson submitted a planning application to "Create a wetland habitat following extraction of sand and gravel at Needingworth quarry" to Cambridge County Council in June 1999.

After further consultations with the general public and other relevant bodies, the application was considered by the development control committee on the 27th March 2000, which resolved to support the application subject to a legal agreement and the imposition of planning conditions.

Award Recognition for the Site

The Needingworth Wetland Project has already won a top award from the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), the professional body for town and country planners.

The project received the 'RTPI National Award for Planning Achievement 2000’ from an original entry of 80 schemes, submitted from throughout the UK. Winning the 'Award for Planning and Biodiversity’, Needingworth was one of ten category winners. The scheme was submitted jointly by Hanson, Cambridgeshire County Council and the RSPB.