Nature conservation
Access for visitors
Project summary
This project provided a framework for managing the impacts of visitors to sensitive sites along the Norfolk coast.
Background
Our coast is understandably a place many want to visit – access to the coast brings a wide range of benefits but can also damage the nature conservation interest.
This project centred on how to achieve a balance between nature conservation and access around The Wash and North Norfolk Coast.
It appointed experts who followed the Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) process, which provides a framework for managing the impacts of visitors to sensitive sites. The process has been used widely around the world since the 1980s, but it has hardly been applied in the UK before, and not for an area as large and complex as the North Norfolk and The Wash coastline. This project focussed on access from Gibraltar Point in Lincolnshire, around The Wash, and along the North Norfolk Coast east to Weybourne.
Project partners worked with stakeholders to identify the main issues of concern, such as beach nesting birds, non-breeding water birds, seals, and coastal habitats (foredune, vegetated shingle and saltmarsh, in particular).
They then identified zones to reflect the management and use of the sites, such as: towns & villages, sites with high visitor-appeal, green spaces, wildlife tourism, wild places and wildlife only-spaces.
A zoned map then enabled them to set out actions that could be applied to different zones and issues, essentially providing an intervention toolkit.
This study, phase 1 of a wider project, has been completed.
