Biodiversity Action Plan for Wokingham Borough 2003-2012

 

This Habitat Action Plan covers all types of woodland and parkland. In Wokingham Borough they vary with the underlying geology form calcareous beech woods over the Chalk in the north of the Borough to acid Oak woodland over the acidic Bagshot and Reading beds in the south and west of the Borough.

 

In between there are mixed broad-leaved woodlands over the predominantly neutral London Clay. In addition wet riverine woodlands occur within the floodplains of the river Loddon, Blackwater and Thames and wet bog woodlands occur amongst the heathland where drainage is impeded.

 

 

This Habitat Action Plan - HAP - covers all types of lowland grassland. Unimproved grasslands are generally the most diverse. Within Wokingham Borough they range from acid grasslands on the Reading Beds and Bagshot beds in the south and east of the Borough, through neutral grasslands mainly on the London clay to calcareous - or Chalk - grassland where the chalk outcrops in the north of the Borough.

 

Much of the remaining improved grassland within the Borough lies within the floodplains of the Rivers Thames, Loddon and Blackwater.

 

 

This Habitat Action Plan covers all types of wetland habitat, rivers, streams lakes, ponds and swamp/reedbeds. Floodplain habitats such as wet grassland and wet woodland are covered in the Grassland and Woodland HAPs respectively, and lowland valley mires are covered in the Heathland HAP.

 

 

This Habitat Action Plan - HAP - covers all types of lowland heathland, lowland valley mires or bogs and acid grassland. Lowland heathland is characterised both by the presence of dwarf ericaceous species such as heather, gorses and cross-leaved heath and by the typically undulating landscape forms associated with it - Berkshire Nature Conservation Forum, 1998.

 

 

This Habitat Action Plan covers any habitat that occurs within the confines of a Town or Village. The value of these habitats is not confined to their ecological value - which can be significant - but also their relationship to the local people that enjoy them.

 

The plan includes those measures that contribute to local awareness, public involvement and political commitment in the Biodiversity process.