Salt marsh bid for south Cumbria coastal grazing area

The land, to the south of Flookburgh, is currently used as grazing marsh for sheep

Plans to create a habitat to encourage birds to breed at a coastal salt marsh have been submitted to councillors.

It would involve installing a series of saline lagoons at West Plain Marsh, which sits to the south of Flookburgh.

Land owner Holker Estates Company Ltd said in its plans to South Lakeland District Council it would offer "high-quality habitat for breeding and wintering waders and waterfowl".

Currently the site is managed as grazing marsh for sheep.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said a planning statement submitted in support of the application described the lagoons as shallow and interconnected with deeper channels and islands.

They would be built in such a way so they are occasionally inundated by the tide and "provide a valuable extension to a rare wetland habitat in the North West", the plans said.

Walkers on the adjacent footpath - the future England Coast Path - would have clear open views into the site, the statement said, and once the vegetation establishes, the proposals would be "clearly noticeable, but would appear in-character and appropriate in the coastal marsh landscape".

It added "The lagoons would therefore have a natural appearance rather than an engineered one."