Improving sites with natural designations
We continue our work to improve the condition of sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) on our land. We have nearly 17,500 ha of SSSIs on our land, some of which are also designated as Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and Special Areas of Conservation (SACs). Over the last year we increased the proportion of SSSIs that are in favourable or unfavourable recovering status to 93% from 83% in 2007/08. Much of this improvement was delivered through our Sustainable Catchment Management project (SCaMP). The government’s public service agreement target in England is for 95% of SSSIs to meet this level of condition.
We have completed a programme of non-native tree removal from our three woodland SSSIs at Thirlmere and we have also agreed a remedy with Natural England to restore a 200 hectare section of the Armboth Fell SSSI that is currently in unfavourable condition. The status of the SSSI at Ennerdale has also now moved from unfavourable no change to unfavourable recovering.
We help to protect specifically designated wildlife areas through investment projects designed to reduce the impact of our operations. During the current five-year investment period, AMP4, we have a number of projects relating to our raw water abstractions to improve special areas of conservation (SACs) in our region, largely in Cumbria. These projects mainly involve providing the infrastructure to allow us to increase flows released to the rivers from which we abstract or installing fish passes or screens to avoid salmon and other fish from being entrained at our intakes.
We are also investing both in this AMP4 period and the next AMP period to improve river water quality and lake water quality for the benefits of aquatic species under the Habitats Directive and also to hit biodiversity action plan and SSSI targets through improvements to our wastewater treatment continuous discharges and in a small number of locations our intermittent discharges as well. On the Rivers Eden, Derwent and Kent in Cumbria we are helping to reduce phosphorus levels through installation of removal plants at our wastewater treatment works, as well as at sites impacting on Lake Windermere, Coniston Water, Esthwaite Water, in Cumbria and Martin Mere in Lancashire.
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