SLP KDBH Extracts - Flipbook - Page 20
open space, sporting facilities, safe cycling routes and the protection and
improvement of air quality.
Challenge K - Protecting and enhancing our natural
assets
Decline in the quantity, quality and connectivity of biodiversity and ecological
networks across the Borough, including sites of national importance such as the
River Blythe, loss of sites of local importance, and fragmentation of habitats.
Degrading of the historic Arden landscape character in parts of the Borough.
Managing the growth agenda so that ecosystem services provided by natural assets
are not harmed and thus undermine the Borough’s capacity for growth.
Facilitating the planting of 250,000 trees by 2030
Objectives
Increase and enhance Solihull’s natural environment
Promote an ecosystem approach to biodiversity conservation aimed at:
Halting and reversing decline and loss by conserving, enhancing and increasing the
cover and connectivity of biodiversity and habitats of value. Contributing to local and
sub-regional initiatives to improve the natural environment, such as Nature Recovery
Networks and the Natural Capital Investment Strategy
Integrate green infrastructure and biodiversity net gain within development and avert
fragmentation with the wider ecological network
Reviewing and updating biodiversity information and the network of local wildlife and
geological sites.
Addressing gaps in the strategic ecological network to support wildlife and green
infrastructure.
Promote a landscape scale approach to protecting and restoring the landscape of the
Borough and its characteristic features.
Challenge L – Improving water quality and flood risk
Poor or moderate quality of the Borough’s main water bodies, the Rivers Blythe and
Cole and their tributaries, and increasing risk of flooding associated with new
development.
Objectives
To contribute towards improving the quality of the water environment by ensuring that
the Plan’s policies and land allocations help to protect and improve the quality of the
main water bodies in the Borough.
To minimise the risk of flooding by avoiding development in high risk areas wherever
possible, by applying the flood risk sequential test reducing flows to rivers by
restricting surface water discharge rates during periods of high intensity rainfall, and
ensuring that new development is designed so as to minimise surface water flooding
risks.
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