Cumbria Landscape Character Guidance and Toolkit PART ONE Landscape Character Guidance Supporting Cumbria’s Local Development Frameworks Cumbria Landscape Character Guidance This document has been prepared jointly for: Cumbria County Council Allerdale Borough Council Barrow Borough Council Carlisle City Council Copeland Borough Council Eden District Council South Lakeland District Council It provides evidence to support policy formulation and site allocations in the Local Development Frameworks being developed by each of the above local authorities. Acknowledgments This document has been prepared by Jenny Wain, Principal Planning Officer, Cumbria County Council. Also from Cumbria County Council: Mark Brennand and Richard Newman provided historic input. Matthew Armstrong provided support reviewing the original landscape character assessment and strategy, reviewing surveys and running workshops. Alison Mofatt and Lucinda Weymouth, Landscape Architects at Capita Symonds provided expert input on Part Two of this document. The document has been produced with the support and encouragement of the Cumbria Landscape Character Steering Group: Chris Greenwood – Lake District National Park Authority Richard Pearse – Friends of the Lake District Stuart Pasley – Natural England Leanne Beverley – Cumbria County Council Photographs are courtesy of Cumbria County Council, Brian Irving HELM Images and Lucy Drummond. For further information contact Jenny Wain on 01539 713427 or [email protected] © Cumbria County Council, March 2011 ii Cumbria Landscape Character Guidance Contents 1. Introduction 1 2. Changes in the landscape 4 3. Cumbria Landscape Character Assessment and Guidance 16 Maps 18 Type 1: Bay and Estuary 26 Sub type 1a: Intertidal Flats 27 Sub type 1b: Coastal Marsh 31 Type 2: Coastal Margins 34 Sub type 2a: Dunes and Beaches 35 Sub type 2b: Coastal Mosses 39 Sub type 2c: Coastal Plain 42 Sub type 2d: Coastal Urban Fringe 46 Type 3: Coastal Limestone 50 Sub type 3a: Open Farmland and Pavements 51 Sub type 3b: Wooded Hills and Pavements 55 Sub type 3c: Disturbed Areas 59 Type 4: Coastal Sandstone 62 Type 5: Lowland 66 Sub type 5a: Ridge and Valley 67 Sub type 5b: Low Farmland 71 Sub type 5c: Rolling Lowland 75 Sub type 5d: Urban Fringe 79 Sub type 5e: Drained Mosses 82 Type 6: Intermediate Farmland 84 Type 7: Drumlins 90 Sub type 7a: Low Drumlins 91 Sub type 7b: Drumlin Field 94 Sub type 7c: Sandy Knolls and Ridges 98 Type 8: Main Valleys 100 Sub Type 8a: Gorges 101 Sub type 8b: Broad Valleys 104 Sub type 8c: Valley Corridors 108 Sub type 8d: Dales 111 iii Cumbria Landscape Character Guidance Type 9: Intermediate Moorland and Plateau 116 Sub type 9a: Open Moorlands 117 Sub type 9b: Rolling Farmland and Heath 120 Sub type 9c: Forests 123 Sub type 9d: Ridges 126 Type 10: Sandstone Ridge 130 Type 11: Upland Fringes 134 Sub type 11a: Foothills 135 Sub type 11b: Low Fells 139 Type 12: Higher Limestone 142 Sub type 12a: Limestone Farmland 143 Sub type 12b: Rolling Fringe 147 Sub type 12c: Limestone Foothills 150 Sub type 12d: Moorland and Commons 153 Type 13: Fells and Scarp 156 Sub type 13a: Scarps 157 Sub type 13b: Moorland, High Plateau 160 Sub type 13c: Fells 163 iv Cumbria Landscape Character Guidance 1. Introduction Background by land owners, managers, developers, communities and planning authorities when making decisions on 1.1 In 2009 Cumbria County Council, in partnership future land use and management. Importantly it will with the Cumbrian Local Planning Authorities support the local development frameworks and began the review of the Cumbria Landscape be used to influence where future development Classification and Cumbria Landscape Strategy. takes place and what it might look like. It addresses These were produced in the 1990s and together the aims of the European Landscape Convention provided a county wide landscape character by identifying and assessing landscape types and by assessment and strategy for landscapes outside the providing a strategic framework that includes visions Lake District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks. and objectives for future landscapes and guidelines to help protect, manage and plan changes to maintain and enhance landscape distinctiveness. Purpose of the review 1.2 The original assessment and strategy were over Methodology and approach 10 years old. Although the landscape character assessment was revised in 20021, the revised 1.5 A county wide review of the existing Cumbria document had never been formally adopted or Landscape Classification, Technical Paper 5 and published by the council. Further revision would Cumbria Landscape Strategy took place in 2009. enable it to be better aligned with the more This was undertaken by staff at Cumbria County recently published landscape character assessment Council with the support of officers from local for the Lake District National Park. The landscape planning authorities. It has involved a review of strategy needed revising to reflect new influences existing information, consideration of the findings that have been shaping our landscapes over the last of surveys and workshops and field assessments. decade and into the future. Both needed revising The work followed national guidance2 and recent to reflect the principles of the European Landscape approaches taken by other local authorities. Convention which were adopted by the UK in 2007. Further information on the detailed methodology adopted when carrying out a landscape character 1.3 In line with good practice it was agreed to review assessment is contained in Part Two. both documents and combine them into this single Landscape Character Assessment Guidance and 1.6 In carrying out the review consideration has Toolkit. been given to the information contained in the Lake District National Park Landscape Character • The landscape character assessment seeks to Assessment and Guidelines, Yorkshire Dales describe and map the elements and features National Park Landscape Character Assessment that make up distinctively different types of and Natural England’s National Park boundary landscape throughout the county. review landscape character assessment, particularly • The vision, landscape changes and guidelines for areas adjacent to the national parks. It has also provide a framework to help protect, manage, considered Natural England’s NW Landscape enhance and restore landscapes in the future Character Framework. and keep their distinctiveness. 1.7 The assessment identifies, maps, classifies and 1.4 The landscape character assessment and toolkit will describes the elements and features that make up provide a base line of information that can be used a landscape’s character. It has taken into account 1. Technical Paper 5 – Landscape Character Assessment (Cumbria and Lake District Joint Structure Plan 2001 – 2016) 2. Landscape Character Assessment – Guidance for England and Scotland (Countryside Agency /Scottish National Heritage, 2002.) 1 Cumbria Landscape Character Guidance both the physical components of a landscape 1.11 Once the landscape character is understood and the relationships between people, place judgements can be made on how sensitive and nature. It acknowledges that landscapes are landscapes are to change, the landscape’s dynamic and have and will be shaped by natural condition and issues that might influence change. and man made forces and actions. It recognises This helps determine what guidelines might be the historic and cultural associations, wildlife and appropriate to help manage landscape change in habitats and how the landscape might be regarded the future. This information was contained in the by people. These are generally defined as: original Cumbria Landscape Classification and the Cumbria Landscape Strategy. When reconsidering • Visible physical components such as landform, these issues we recognised that landscapes are vegetation, buildings and structures. dynamic and always have and will change. Our • Visible spatial components such as scale, pattern, activities along with natural forces and processes colour and texture. are major influences on our environment and • Non visible components such as sense of landscapes. The review concluded that many of tranquillity, wildness and cultural associations. the original guidelines were still appropriate but new issues, such as changes in agricultural policy 1.8 Generic landscape types were originally developed and approaches to climate change adaptation and in the Cumbria Landscape Classification. These mitigation, needed to be better reflected. are defined units of landscape that occur across the county and that have the same distinct and 1.12 In 2009 a range of organisations and individuals recognisable pattern of elements. There were 13 with an interest in landscapes were involved in the broad landscape types and 37 sub types in the original review work. A survey was carried out in spring landscape assessment. These have all been reviewed. 2009 and workshops were held in summer 2009 with a range of interest groups and technical staff. 1.9 The review confirmed that the landscape types are The feedback from these has helped shape the still largely appropriate for Cumbria. However some landscape character assessment and guidelines. boundary changes have been made to better reflect Following this a working draft of this document the character now and to better align with the was published for consultation in summer 2010. Lake District National Park Landscape Character Assessment. No new types are proposed. Type 1 Estuary and Marsh has been renamed