AONB LCAR S1 P1-10 FINAL - the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding ...

2 Evolution of the Landscape
Biodiversity
• There has been an irreplaceable loss of semi-natural
habitats including areas of common land and species rich
limestone grassland, now converted to arable production.
• Loss of wetland, water meadows and river margin
habitats has occurred as a result of the effects of
nitrate-rich run off, abstraction, and drainage associated
with agricultural intensification.
Development Pressures
• Despite stringent controls of building development,
there is evidence of inappropriate materials, style
and layouts that do not accord with the ‘Cotswold
vernacular’. These adversely affect the otherwise
remarkable unity and charm of the many settlements.
• Pressure for edge development can adversely affect
the historic form of the villages and mask the direct
relationship with geology, landform and land use.
Inappropriate village edge development can often
have a significant impact on the wider landscape
setting of a settlement.
• Within the rural landscape, an increasing number of
modern, industrial scale farm buildings constructed
in prefabricated materials conflict in form and scale
with the more traditional Cotswolds stone barns.
• At a local level, there is evidence of a creeping
‘suburbanisation’ within house curtilages, within which
there is no direct control eg window design and garden
treatments. Such changes, whilst having only a minimal
impact locally, when viewed over a wide area, can have
a significant impact on how a landscape is perceived.
• Demands for new housing both from affluent ‘incomers’
and young local people will continue to exert pressure
to establish new housing. There is a need for affordable
housing in particular to ensure that rural communities
can remain intact.
• Within agricultural land, the construction of modern and
often large ‘industrial’ scale agricultural buildings impact
on the landscape and contrast with the more traditional
vernacular stone farmsteads and field barns.
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Cotswolds AONB Partnership
Quarrying
• As recently as the 1930s numerous Cotswold quarries
were still being worked by hand. In the post war period,
however, a limited number of larger scale mechanical
quarries have been established in response to increased
demand for crushed aggregate for road building, as well
as the continued requirement for locally sourced
‘dimension’ stone for building purposes.
• Compared to the number of quarries that once extended
across the Cotswolds, the remaining working quarries
are relatively small in number. They are large in scale,
and therefore likely to affect, and be visible from the
surrounding area for a long period. Quarries are generally
located in fairly remote areas, however, and detached from
settlements. As a consequence their ‘area of influence’ is
confined, but the effects of heavy traffic generated through
quarrying activities is a source of potential disturbance.
Infrastructure
• Following the publication of the Beeching Report in the
1960s, the network of minor railway lines that crossed
the AONB was significantly reduced, leaving a legacy
of disused railway lines. Some of these have been
absorbed into agricultural land, others still bear witness
to their earlier function with embankments and cuttings
still crossing the landscape, and remnants of bridges
remaining. The railway perimeters are often rich in
wildlife interest.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS MAST ON THE COTSWOLDS
HIGH WOLD
• A number of major infrastructure elements, notably high
voltage power lines and telecommunication masts, have
been erected within the AONB and where they occur,
these large vertical elements have a major impact on
the landscape. In recent years, a growing number of
radio and mobile phone masts presents a further impact
on the landscape and a threat to landscape character.