Appendix 6 Outline Access Management Plan – Woolmer Forest (Woolmer Forest SAC and Wealden Heaths SPA) 1.0
INTRODUCTION
1.1
In 2012 Ecological Planning and Research Ltd. (EPR) were commissioned by East Hampshire District Council’s (EHDC) Eco-town Team to refresh the Habitats Regulations Assessment (HRA) for the Whitehill & Bordon Eco-town.
1.2
Earlier iterations of HRA work (2011) by UE Associates and Jonathan Cox Associates recommended (at Section 12.5) that Access Management Plans for each European site be developed as a key component of reducing the existing as well as future impacts of development.
1.3
The HRA Refresh Report (EPR, 2012) to which this document forms an Appendix, progresses this recommendation in relation to all European sites with the potential to be affected by increases in recreational pressure by the Whitehill & Bordon Eco-town in the absence of impact avoidance and mitigation measures.
1.4
The HRA Refresh Report sets out a number of broad access management principles and recommendations that apply across the board to all potentially affected European sites. It has also mapped and analysed the spatial distribution of the key qualifying features and sensitive ecology of each site, and identified key areas of conflict where these coincide with recorded impacts. This information has been used to specify recommended key access management actions and monitoring measures.
1.5
This Appendix summarises how these recommendations translate into site-specific recommendations for the northern block of Woolmer Forest SSSI (hereafter referred to as “Woolmer Forest”), in the form of an Outline Access Management Plan (OAMP) to address particular issues and problems that have been identified.
Longmoor
Inclosure, which is also part of Woolmer Forest SSSI and lies to the south of the A3, is dealt with as a separate functional patch and is discussed in Appendix 7.
1.6
The OAMP contained within this Appendix is intended to become the vehicle through which the access management measures made necessary by the Whitehill & Bordon Eco-town proposals will be implemented. It contains outline recommendations formulated from the information collected during the HRA Refresh, including the rd
workshop held with the HRA Working Group and site managers on 3 May 2012.
A6-1