Greater Manchester natural habitats to be afforded more protection
Holcroft Moss and the South Pennine Moors are to be safeguarded from the potentially damaging effects of development.
Greater Manchester Combined Authority has launched consultations on two documents aimed at informing developers of their duties when carrying out projects close to the two natural habitats.
The documents have been drafted to sit alongside Places for Everyone, the joint spatial plan for the development of housing and commercial space across the city region adopted by all of Greater Manchester’s local authorities except Stockport.
Have your say www.gmconsult.org
South Pennine Moors
The GMCA wants to ensure that new homes and businesses in Rochdale, Oldham, and Tameside close to the moorland habitat – which supports populations of birds including merlins, golden plovers, and short-eared owls – have the right safeguards in place to avoid damaging the habitats.
Holcroft Moss
Holcroft Moss in Warrington is designated as a European Special Area of Conservation and contains peat bogs, which are habitats for wildlife and store carbon.
Located next to the M62, it is feared that nitrogen emissions from vehicles could slow the restoration of the peat bog habitat.
The nine Places for Everyone local authorities, together with Warrington Borough Council, are proposing a package of restoration measures to improve the resilience of the peat habitat to air pollution, the GMCA said.
Paul Dennett, City Mayor of Salford and Greater Manchester lead for Places for Everyone, said: “Places for Everyone is our plan to improve employment opportunities for our communities, deliver the homes that Greater Manchester needs, revitalise our town centres, and rejuvenate our green spaces. It’s also our best defence against costly unplanned development.
“These documents will help us to ensure that, through Places for Everyone, the right safeguards are in place to protect our natural environment, including the most important habitats in and around the city region.”
South Pennine Moors? West Yorkshire Moors is the real name. The Pennines was a name made up by a confidence trickster. Check the history books.
By Anonymous
“..nitrogen emissions…” To add to the 80% alredy in the atmosphere?
By Anonymous
@Anonymous (1:30pm)
It is not just nitrogen. This summary is taken from the Gov.UK page “Emissions of air pollutants in the UK – Nitrogen oxides (NOx) ” from earlier this year.
“Nitrogen oxides (NOx) refers to nitric oxide (NO) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), both of which are mainly formed during the combustion of fossil fuels…NO can react with other gases in the atmosphere to form nitrogen dioxide (NO2) which is harmful to health. These reactions take place very quickly and are reversible, so the two gases are referred to together as NOx.
…Short-term exposure to concentrations of NO2 can cause inflammation of the airways and increase susceptibility to respiratory infections and to allergens. NO2 can exacerbate the symptoms of those already suffering from lung or heart conditions. In addition, NOx can have environmental impacts. Deposition of nitrogen to the environment both directly as a gas (dry deposition) and in precipitation (wet deposition) can change soil chemistry and affect biodiversity in sensitive habitats…”
By WeAllBreatheThisStuff
November 07, 2024 at 12:27 pm By Anonymous.
The South Pennine Moors SAC does indeed have sections in West Yorkshire. The largest part of it, however, might start near Todmorden but has it’s southernmost extreme south-east of Bakewell in Derbyshire (if you get to Darley Dale you’ve gone too far). I’ve not got my planimeter to hand but I’d hazard a guess that the largest part of it is in Derbyshire, with a small part to be found also in what was historically Cheshire.
It nicely complements the North Pennine Moors SAC, recognised seperately because it has different ecological characteristics worthy of protection, which starts less than 10km north of the northermost part of the South Pennine Moors (with Ilkley sat between them) and stretches in the opposite direction up through County Durham and into Northumberland. It’s only the width of an ecologist’s slipped pencil away from going into the historic counties of Cumberland or Westmoreland too.
Yorkshire is unquestionably the greatest place on earth, at least to those of us born and bred there, but we don’t have a monopoly on ecologically important landscapes.
By Sceptic