The Landscape Partnership was commissioned to advise on ways to ensure a ‘naturalistic’ restoration at Snetterton Gravel Pit. Usually, overburden and washings from the processing plant are used to create sandy beaches and a gently shelving margin to the void, but because mineral processing in this instance took place off-site, there was little material available for backfill, to create the shallow water needed for development of marginal swamp habitats, and so sinuous and shelving margins were cut into the sides of the excavation before the water level was allowed to rise, thus creating a fringe of swamp and fen vegetation: this creates a visually softer margin and also a habitat transition between the open water and retained carr woodland in the north of the site.
