2. Understanding the area A special place The Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty The Area was legally designated in 1968, following is a protected National Landscape that sweeps around a five-year process of consideration of its landscape quality, most of the coast of Norfolk, England. Comprising 451 statutory assessments by national conservation agencies, square kilometres of intertidal, coastal and agricultural and consultation with a broad range of stakeholders, land that stretches across the territory of three different including local landowners, residents and businesses, local authorities and one county council, the Area is as well as visitors and the wider public14. It runs along just characterised by remarkable natural landscapes, over 90 kilometres of the Norfolk coast, stretching from the and renowned as one of the few lowland areas in the mean low water mark and up to eight kilometres inland; UK to have a genuine ‘wilderness’ quality. It is physically within its boundaries there are a wealth of different split into three separate zones that encompass large natural and manmade landscapes, many rich with wildlife: sections of the coast: heaths and moors, salt marshes and high cliffs, chalk rivers and busy harbours. • The western zone lies just north of King’s Lynn, taking in parts of the Sandringham Estate (including 13. http://www.norfolkcoastaonb.org.uk/mediaps/pdfuploads/pd003377.pdf Sandringham House) and an area of the south-eastern 14. http://www.norfolkcoastaonb.org.uk/mediaps/pdfuploads/pd001161.pdf corner of the Wash • The central zone runs from Old Hunstanton to Weybourne (a stretch protected under a separate designation: the ‘North Norfolk Heritage Coast’13) and then on to a point near Bacton in the east, excluding the resort areas of Sheringham, Cromer and Mundesley • The eastern zone runs from Sea Palling to Winterton-on-Sea, taking in Winterton Dunes Landscape character areas Open coastal marshes Rolling open farmland Tributary farmland Large valley Settlement OpenDrained coastal marshescoastal marshes Rolling open farmlandPlateau farmlandTributary farmland WoodedLarge valleywith parkland SettlementEstuarine marshland Rivers DrainedCoastal coastal slopes marshes Plateau farmland Rolling heath andWooded arable with parkland CoastalEstuarine plain marshland Rivers Settled farmland Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty Coastal slopes Rolling heath and arable Coastal plain Settled farmland Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty (outline) (outline) WoodedWooded slopes slopes with estate with land estate landSmall valleys Small valleys Coastal towns and villages CoastalDunes, towns coastal andlevels andvillages resorts Dunes, coastal levels and resorts N 0 10km Wells-next 0 10km -the-Sea N Wells-next Information based upon © Crown copyright. All rights reserved. -the-Sea Sheringham Licence No. 100019340 2020 Cromer Hunstanton Information based upon © Crown copyright. All rights reserved. Sheringham Licence No. 100019340 2020 Cromer Hunstanton A148 Holt Fakenham A148 Holt North Walsham A148 Aylsham A149 Stalham King’s Lynn Fakenham A140 A1067 North Walsham Aylsham A148 Hemsby A1151 Norwich A149 A47 Dereham Stalham King’s Caister A47 -on-Sea Lynn A140 A10 Swaffham A1067 Great Yarmouth Wymondham Downham Market Watton Hemsby A1151 Norwich A47 Dereham Caister Attleborough A47 -on-Sea A10 Swaffham Great Yarmouth Wymondham Downham Market Watton Attleborough Understanding the area These two layers of official purpose mean designation How designation helps to protect not just an AONB’s natural features (its trees, fields and open spaces) but also the settlements informs management and working environments that are distinctive characteristics of the local countryside. This nuanced status allows The statutory purpose of designating an area of land as an for the sustainable development of communities and Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is to conserve economic activity, including rural businesses, in ways and enhance natural beauty. It is important to note that that further enhance the character of the area – an AONB ‘natural beauty’ is a definition not limited simply to may be uniquely beautiful but that doesn’t mean its aesthetics; it includes everything that contributes to landscape should be preserved entirely unchanged. a unique sense of place, so not only an area’s landscapes A degree of sensitive pragmatism has to be factored into but also its plants, wildlife, biodiversity, geodiversity the management of the Norfolk Coast Area of Outstanding and manmade historical and cultural features. Natural Beauty because, like many others, the Area relies There are also secondary, non-statutory recognised heavily on tourism to drive a thriving economy; also, more purposes of AONBs: firstly, to take account of the needs recently, it has started to rely on power generation – both of agriculture, forestry, fishing and other local rural industries via offshore wind power and by the importation of a large and of the economic and social needs of local communities, portion of the nation’s gas supply via a site near Bacton paying particular regard to promoting sustainable forms (a pipeline to Zeebrugge in Belgium connects the UK to of social and economic development that in themselves mainland Europe’s gas network). conserve and enhance the area’s natural beauty; In managing the Area, the Norfolk Coast Partnership and secondly, to seek to meet the demand for recreation also has a non-statutory responsibility to protect the so far as this is consistent with the statutory purpose North Norfolk Heritage Coast15, a stretch running from of conserving and enhancing the area’s natural beauty – Holme-next-the-Sea to Weybourne that is an officially and which preferably supports this purpose by increasing defined landscape in its own right, and which is recognised understanding, valuation and care for the area – as one of the finest stretches of undeveloped coast in and is also consistent with the needs of rural industries. Heritage Coast England and Wales. In addition, the Area also encompasses Settlement and has to be managed within the context of a range Rivers of other designations and important features, including Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty (outline) 85 County Wildlife Sites, 59 Scheduled Monuments, 42 Conservation Areas, 28 sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs), and numerous listed buildings. It's also worth noting Heritage Coast that although the statutory boundaries of the Norfolk Coast North NorfolkSettlement Heritage Coast Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty remain as originally Rivers designated in 1968, there is a national move towards Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty Wells-next (outline) a landscape-scale approach with less dependence on rigid -the-Sea Heritage Coast 0 10km N boundaries, and there is also some local pressure from parish SheringhamSettlement Information based upon © Crown copyright. All rights reserved. councils and other organisations to extend the boundaries Blakeney Cromer Lincence No. 100019340 2020 16 Hunstanton Rivers of the Area to cover a larger physical territory . Area of Oustanding Natural Beauty (outline) 15. http://www.norfolkcoastaonb.org.uk/mediaps/pdfuploads/pd003377.pdf A148 Holt 16. http://www.norfolkcoastaonb.org.uk/partnership/aonb-designation/1050 Wells-next -the-Sea N 0 10km Sheringham Information based upon © Crown copyright. Fakenham All rights reserved. Blakeney Cromer Lincence No. 100019340 2020 Hunstanton North Walsham A148 Aylsham A149 Stalham A148 Holt King’s Lynn A140 A1067 Fakenham Wells-next North Hemsby -the-Sea Walsham 0 10km A148A1151 Aylsham N Dereham Norwich A149 A47 Stalham Sheringham Information based upon © Crown copyright. King’s Caister All rights reserved. -on-Sea Blakeney Lynn A47 A140 Cromer Lincence No. 100019340 2020 Hunstanton A1067 A10 Swaffham Great Yarmouth Hemsby A1151 Norwich Wymondham A47 Dereham Downham Market Watton A148 Holt Caister -on-Sea A47 A10 Swaffham Great Yarmouth Attleborough Fakenham Wymondham Downham Market Watton North Walsham A148 Aylsham A149 Stalham Attleborough King’s Lynn A140 A1067 Hemsby A1151 Norwich A47 Dereham Caister -on-Sea A47 A10 Swaffham Great Yarmouth Wymondham Downham Market Watton Attleborough Understanding the area Although they are protected by law, the UK’s AONBs National Landscapes are far from being unchanging physical museums. Instead they are vibrant, living, working landscapes that contribute The desire to designate a number of special areas of the some £16bn every year to the national economy. Over two countryside to be managed in the interest of everyone – thirds of England’s population live within half an hour’s local residents, businesses, visitors, and the wider public – drive of an AONB and around 150 million people visit English and protected for future generations, irrespective of wider AONBs every year, spending in excess of £2bn. In addition political and economic pressures, emerged from the mood to being part of a UK family of National Landscapes, AONBs of civic renewal that characterised the decades following the are recognised internationally as part of a global family of end of the Second World War. The principles of protecting protected areas, identified by the International Union for areas of intrinsic worth from inappropriate development the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as ‘Category V: Protected and taking action for ‘preserving and enhancing natural Landscapes’ as those ‘where the interaction of people and beauty’ were first defined in law by the 1949 National Parks