Somerset Levels - Land Use

Land Use

The Levels have few wooded areas, just occasional willow trees. The landscape is dominated by grassland, mostly used as pasture for dairy farming with approximately 70 percent of the area being grassland and 30 percent arable. From January until May, the River Parrett provides a source of European eels (Anguilla anguilla) and young elvers, which are caught by hand netting as this is the only legal means of catching them. A series of eel passes have been built on the Parrett at the King's Sedgemoor Drain to help this endangered species; cameras have shown 10,000 eels migrating upstream in a single night. The 2003 BBC Radio 4 play Glass Eels by Nell Leyshon was set on the Parrett.

The Levels and Moors, as part of the West Country, was a traditional producer of cider, with individual farms having orchards and producing their own cider, known as scrumpy. However, over 60% of Somerset's orchards have been lost in the last fifty years; and apple production occupies less than 0.4% of the land. Cider is still produced in Somerset by Thatchers Cider and Gaymer Cider Company. Other local industries that once thrived on the Levels, such as thatching (using reeds) and basket making (using willow), have been in decline since the second half of the 20th century. Combined with the recent drop in farm incomes, this poses a potential threat to the "traditional" nature of the area as a whole. Subsidies are paid to farmers who manage their land in the traditional way.

In October 2009, National Grid began public consultations over plans to build a line of electricity pylons, by one of two routes between Hinkley Point and Avonmouth. The plans attracted local opposition. The first consultation process ended in January 2010. They had proposed that each pylon would be 46 metres (151 ft) high: the consultation was only in respect of preferences between two alternate routes, not the size nor the use of large pylons. The proposed line, which is due to open by September 2017, will transmit 400 Kilovolts of electricity from the proposed Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Électricité de France has begun public consultations in respect of the local infrastructure needed for the construction programme to build Hinkley Point C; but, as of January 2011, has not submitted applications for consents for the proposed power stations. It has, however, submitted a planning application for preliminary site preparation works, which it states that it will undo should consents for the power stations be refused.

In 2010 and 2011, two proposals to build a total of 14 wind turbines, with Ecotricity to build five or four adjacent to the M5 Motorway near Brent Knoll and Électricité de France to build nine at East Huntspill, are opposed by local groups on the grounds of their effect on the local environment and potential damage to the bird population.