APPENDIX 8A - National Infrastructure Planning

DESKTOP STUDY DATA
Designated Wildlife Sites
Site Name/
Designation
Reason for designation Approx.
distance /
direction
from works
International Designations - Ramsar
The Wash
Ramsar
Roydon
Common
Ramsar
Dersingham
Bog
Ramsar
Ouse
Washes
Ramsar
Important over-wintering site for migrant wildfowl and wading birds. One of the North Sea's largest breeding
populations of common seal and some grey seals. The sublittoral area supports a number of different marine
communities including colonies of the reef-building polychaete worm Sabellaria spinulosa.
Ramsar criterion 1 - The Wash comprises extensive saltmarshes, major intertidal banks of sand and mud,
shallow water and deep channels.
Ramsar criterion 3 - The inter-relationship between components including saltmarshes, intertidal sand and mud
flats and the estuarine waters. The saltmarshes and the plankton in the estuarine water provide a primary
source of organic material which, together with other organic matter, forms the basis for the high productivity of
the estuary.
Ramsar criterion 5 – Bird assemblages of international importance (species with peak counts in winter).
Ramsar criterion 6 – Species/populations occurring at levels of international importance.
See Natura 2000 form for list of qualifying species.
Roydon Common is an area of lowland mixed valley mire surrounded by heathland. The valley mire is a complex
series of plant communities grading from wet acid heath through valley mire to calcareous fen. It is considered
to be one of the best examples in Britain.
Ramsar criterion 1 - The site is the most extensive example of valley mire-heathland biotope within East Anglia
(the vegetation communities reflect the influence of both base-poor and base-rich water).
Ramsar criterion 3 - The vegetation communities of the site have a restricted distribution within Britain and it also
supports a number of acidophilic invertebrates outside their normal geographic range and six British Red Data
Book invertebrates.
Dersingham Bog Ramsar site is East Anglia's largest remaining example of a pure acid valley mire, and
supports extensive bog, wet heath and transition communities over peat. The bog habitats are a remnant of the
transition mires that formerly existed between this former shoreline and the now mostly land-claimed
saltmarshes around The Wash.
Ramsar criterion 2 - The site supports an important assemblage of invertebrates (nine British Red Data Book
species have been recorded).
The Ouse Washes is a seasonally-flooded, traditionally managed washland supporting nationally and
internationally important numbers of wintering wildfowl and nationally important numbers of breeding wildfowl.
The site is also valued for its grassland and aquatic floral communities.
6.7km
North
8km
Northeast
12km
Northeast
13.6km
South