Sunderland saltmarsh plans hoped to protect and enhance River Wear shoreline habitats

Plans for a project aiming to “protect and enhance” saltmarsh habitats along the river Wear have been submitted.

Sunderland City Council’s planning department has received an application for two stretches of the riverside, including a site near the Claxheugh Rocks, South Hylton and Baron’s Quay in North Hylton.

Applicant Groundwork North East and Cumbria is looking for permission to install ‘brushwood fascines’, or bundles of cut branches, fixed with ‘chestnut stakes’ along parts of the riverbank.

The plans are part of a wider ecological project ‘Restoring Meadow, Marsh and Reef’ that aims to “reverse centuries of decline of our priority estuarine and coastal habitats”.

In Sunderland, the project aims to protect and enhance shoreline habitats, and to allow for the potential expansion of existing saltmarsh, the Local Democracy Reporting Service reports.

Plans for Sunderland aim to encourage natural processes along the shorelines of the estuary and protect habitats from waves.

Works across the two sites aim to provide “ecological enhancement through protection and restoration of intertidal habitat” along more than 700m of the foreshore, which is the area of a shoreline between the high and low tide marks.

Intertidal habitat refers to habitats in the area of a shoreline that is submerged at high tide and exposed at low.

The supporting document adds: “The Wear Estuary is a heavily modified water body classed as moderate.

“The latest analysis of monitoring data suggests that it will show a deterioration to poor in the next classification.

“Confirmed reasons for not achieving good include physical modification for flood and coastal protection use and navigation and ports.

“The proposal represents a ’light touch’ intervention that helps mitigate these modifications.

“Baron’s Quay and Timber Beach are among the most significant historic areas of saltmarsh that survive on the river Wear.

“By encouraging restoration of natural estuarine processes of sediment accumulation this scheme will help protect and potentially enhance this saltmarsh habitat”.

Those behind the scheme said saltmarsh habitats in the UK and Ireland have seen “loss and damage over centuries”, including the loss of ecosystems and functions provided by the habitats.

It was noted that “active intervention is required to reverse the decline of saltmarsh habitats, and to successfully restore resilient and well-functioning saltmarsh”.

The benefits of the Sunderland scheme include the potential to “reduce flooding and coastal erosion [and] increase carbon sequestration, as well as a range of other ecosystem services”.

Carbon sequestration is the process of storing CO2 from the atmosphere in the ground.

The supporting document adds: “This is a relatively small project with no major constraints."

A decision on the planning application is expected to be made once a period of council consultation has concluded.

Sunderland City Council’s planning portal website lists a decision deadline of November 18, 2024.

For more information on the planning application or to track its progress, you can visit the council’s planning portal and search reference: 24/01942/FU4

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