Manifesto for the Landscape

March 2013

A secure future for our finest landscapes

We call on the Government to ensure:

Adequate funding: Our National Parks and AONBs deserve secure funding so they can plan ahead for the future. Government should recognise the benefits they bring to the nation through the happiness and well-being of visitors, the high quality of landscape and resource management by the National Park Authorities and the role of the Parks in supporting English tourism. Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty also face an uncertain future as local authority budgets are cut and money for the management of AONBs comes under greater pressure.

New and extended Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty: A commitment from Government to support new AONBs in the Yorkshire Wolds, Forest of Dean and the Marches in Herefordshire. Natural must have sufficient resources to develop our AONB network, including extensions to the Surrey Hills and Coast and Heaths AONBs.

Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Park extensions: the areas in between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks are widely regarded as unfinished business dating back to when the National Parks first came into being. These stunning landscapes belong within the National Parks and their exclusion is both an administrative anomaly and puts them at risk from damaging development. Natural England first proposed designating land between the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks in 2009. Public opinion is in favour of the extensions. A Public Inquiry will begin in June 2013. We call on Government to confirm the extensions promptly.

Rigorous planning: The Government and Natural England need to ensure that any significant development proposed in a National Park or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) is subject to the major development test in the National Planning Policy Framework (115-116). We believe that any development that passes the test should be designed to the highest environmental standards. Smaller scale development can also have a damaging cumulative impact. CPRE is deeply concerned about current proposals in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill which would override the key purpose of National Parks and AONBs – to conserve beauty - in order to provide new telecommunications infrastructure. We support the extension of broadband access to all rural areas. But we believe that the proposal in Clause 8 of the Bill would establish a deeply damaging precedent for landscape protection and in any case is unnecessary, as applications for broadband development are not being held back by these areas’ special planning protection.

A brighter future for the countryside next door...

A brighter future for the countryside next door

We call on the Government to:

Local Green Space designation: take forward proposals in Lord Taylor of Goss Moor’s Review of Planning Guidance to introduce guidance to support take-up of the new Local Green Space designation. The designation was an important commitment in the Coalition Agreement. At the moment communi- ties are not able to make the best use of it and so are unable to secure a safe future for valued places on their doorstep.

National Character Areas: support and promote the profile work of Natural England. The 159 National Character Areas provide a widely recognised spatial framework for different landscapes at a national scale. They could help shape local plans, form the basis of any Landscape Character Assessments within the county area and help get good value for money from the new Environmental Land Management Scheme. The Government should ensure that Natural England have the resources they need to complete this project and ensure it is widely promoted to local councils and communities.

European Landscape Convention: take forward the UK’s commitments under the European Landscape Convention (ELC) into Government policy and advice. This Europe-wide treaty (not an EU Directive) applies to all landscapes: those of towns and villages, as well as open countryside; the coast and inland areas; the ordinary and even degraded landscapes as well as those that are afforded protection. It highlights the importance of protecting heritage landscapes, managing all landscapes and creating new landscapes; and promotes public participation in shaping landscape policy and its implementation. But although Natural England and Defra lead on ELC implementation in England, it was not mentioned in the National Planning Policy Framework. The ELC should be at the heart of the UK Government’s approach to landscape.

Town & Village Greens: reconsider proposals in the Growth and Infrastructure Bill to prevent the regis- tration of new town and village greens in cases where land has been identified for development through the planning process. CPRE’s main concern lies with a series of ‘trigger events’ set out in Schedule 4 of the Bill, comprising the first publicising event of a planning application, or a draft of a development plan document. CPRE believes that the Bill should be amended so that the ability to lodge village green applications is retained until development plans are adopted or communities have been given fair notice of a planning application.

Photo by Hilary Fenten