Strategy Area Description

The strategy area is not well supplied with larger fresh water wetlands. Many of the area's more extensive wetland systems, such as those that were once present along the lower reaches of the River Team (Gateshead) and River Don (South Tyneside), have long since disappeared as a result of the re-engineering of the rivers' courses, the extensive drainage of agricultural land and the development of land for industrial use.

Natural wetlands

There is a wide range of wetlands across the strategy area, though few of these could be considered large. The complex of wildlife-rich habitats associated with these include open water, marsh, fen, reed swamp and willow/alder carr.

Wetlands are biodiverse habitats, harbouring a wide variety of aquatic wildlife. This includes submerged and marginal wetland plants, a plethora of invertebrate species, and breeding amphibians (for example common toad). Some wetlands support populations of important 'conservation species' (for example otter, great crested newt, water shrew and, in some locations, water vole and harvest mouse). These sites can be important for wetland birds, including wintering wildfowl. Larger open water bodies include Barmston Pond, Rainton Meadows and Herrington Country Park in the City of Sunderland; Shibdon Pond and Lamesley Pastures in Gateshead; and, Boldon Flats and Tilesheds Pond in South Tyneside.

'Ponds', mainly small in size, of all descriptions are widely distributed across the strategy area. These are often located on low-lying ground or where local drainage conditions mean that water accrues more rapidly than it can drain away, for example on clay-rich soils. They can be important for wildlife, having rich aquatic invertebrate communities for example dragonflies and damselflies, and an array of fringing, water-loving herbs and grasses. Unless they are of a more extensive size or linked to other similar habitats, they are unlikely to be important for larger wildlife.

Nutrient-rich ponds hold a range of aquatic plants including fennel-leaved pondweed and spiked water-milfoil, and often harbour populations of coarse fish that include perch, roach, rudd and eels. Good examples include Boldon Marsh and Tilesheds Ponds in South Tyneside, Usworth Hall Pond in the City of Sunderland and Acer (Dunston) Pond in Gateshead. One of the more unusual wetlands, in the City of Sunderland, is Hetton Bogs which is fed by base-rich waters from the magnesian limestone escarpment.

There are no natural lakes in the area. The few that are present were created for landscape purposes during the restoration of post-industrial land (for example Silksworth Lake, City of Sunderland) as part of formal, municipal parks such as Roker Park, Sunderland and South Marine Park Lake, South Tyneside or in the development of grand estates - for example Axwell Park Lake and the lake at Bradley Hall, both in Gateshead).

Many of the area's larger wetlands are man-made or much influenced by human activity. Some came about as a result of mining subsidence or mineral extraction, such as those at Herrington Country Park, City of Sunderland. Some of the strategy area's most important habitats for wildlife are on the fringes of such wetlands, where reed swamp and marsh proliferates.

The coastal strip is impoverished in terms of freshwater habitats, so the wetlands of Boldon Flats and the water bodies of Sunderland AFC's Academy of Light, which are located on the flat inland plain between South Tyneside and the City of Sunderland, are of particular local importance and hugely attractive to wetland birds.

Other wetlands

More formal, man-made wetlands include the complex of habitats at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Washington, where there is a large breeding colony of grey heron. The development of this facility in the early to mid-1970s was catalysed by the impending loss of what was then one of the region's best lowland wetlands, Barmston Pond.

Hard-edged wetlands, in the shape of formal lakes/ponds in parks for example at Saltwell Park, Gateshead; Mowbray Park, City of Sunderland and South Marine Park, South Tyneside can assume a high level of importance for wildlife within urban settings. The hard-edged lake at South Marine Park, close to the North Sea was one of the region's most important wintering sites for Mute Swan for a period in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Reed swamp and reedbed

Reedbed is a habitat dominated by common reed, but, in practice, the phrase is often used to refer to 'reed swamp', with tall, emergent plants such as greater reedmace and associated wetland herbs, for example greater willow-herb. This habitat occurs around ponds in water-filled ditches and as fringing vegetation abutting areas of wet grassland and open water. This habitat is important for a number of priority species (for example water vole and otter) and amongst the most productive for invertebrate species and birds; breeding bird species might include reed and sedge warbler, reed bunting and water rail.

This is a relatively limited habitat in the strategy area. Important examples include those at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, Washington (City of Sunderland), Primrose Nature Reserve  (South Tyneside), Shibdon Pond and Watergate Forest Park (Gateshead) and Hetton Bogs (City of Sunderland).

This habitat resource has grown appreciably in the strategy area over recent decades. For example, existing reedbeds have expanded in some areas, for example at Rainton Meadows and Joe's Pond (City of Sunderland), and new areas have been created such as the extensive reedbed at Birtley Sewage Treatment Works, near Kibblesworth, Gateshead.