Designation Reviews a consultants perspective Nick James LUC LUC - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Local Landscape Designation Reviews

a consultant’s perspective Nick James LUC

LUC and local landscape designation reviews

Track record in LCA Involvement in LLDR – in Scotland and elsewhere Early implementation of SNH/HS guidance

• Why do we want local landscape designations?
• How much should we designate?
• Who should we involve, how and when?
• Distinguishing between landscape character and landscape quality
• Cross boundary consistency
• Remembering the undesignated

Why do we want local landscape designations?

A range of approaches:

• Celebrating the landscape resource
• Managing change in our best and most valued landscapes
• Representing the landscapes that are typical of an area
• Conserving the setting of villages, towns and cities
• Supporting tourism and recreation and associated economic activity

Evaluation criteria

• Typicality
• Rarity
• Condition or quality
• Scenic qualities
• Enjoyment
• Cultural qualities
• Naturalness
• Setting
• Views
• Connectivity
• Strategies, plans and projects
• Tourist economy
• Scale and identity

Typicality:

• Does the landscape contain features or a

combination of features that recur throughout the Scottish Borders and therefore contribute to its wider identity, image and sense of place locally, regionally

• r nationally?

Categories:

• High – The landscape contains features or

combination of features that frequently recur throughout the Scottish Borders

• Medium – The landscape contains features
• r combination of features that occasionally

recur throughout the Scottish Borders

• Low – the landscape does not contain

features which recur throughout the Scottish Borders

The technical assessment Draft evaluation results:

• Settlement setting

The technical assessment Draft evaluation results:

• Wildness

The technical assessment Draft evaluation results:

• Rarity

How much should we designate?

Different starting points:

• Fife Council – previous AGLV coverage too extensive and policy

weakened

• Scottish Borders Council – previous AGLV focus on uplands – lack of

recognition of other important landscapes

• Perth and Kinross – partial / inconsistent coverage

Methodology helps rank landscapes from the lowest to the highest quality Need to decide a ‘cut off’ in terms of what qualifies for designation – for each council area Stakeholders can help confirm which are locally significant places Policy inputs can help guide the total extent of locally designated landscapes

Who should we involve, how and when?

Widely recognised that some level of public involvement is essential to inform the process

• engagement wrapped into statutory consultation on local development

plans

• stakeholder workshops – local representatives
• public survey – favourite places
• review panels

Working with information from public engagement – informing and testing, not driving the results Awareness of local issues is an important factor

Distinguishing between landscape character and landscape quality

Detailed but sometimes vexed methodological issue First part of the review process based on evaluation of landscape character areas This helps identify ‘areas of search’ but need to recognise that:

• Quality can vary within a given character area (so may want to focus on

part of a character area)

• Important landscapes can include different areas with differing

character (so may want to focus on adjoining parts of different character areas) Need a clearly justified, qualitative process for second part of the review process – field survey, professional judgement

Cross boundary consistency

SNH/HES guidance significant step forward in promoting a consistent approach across Scotland But it is about identifying landscapes that are important within the context

• f the council area in question – decisions about purpose and extent part
• f that process

Very unlikely therefore that there will be consistency in pattern of designation between different council areas Does that matter? Boundary issues? Managing the national landscape resource? Public and developer confidence?

Remembering the undesignated

Designating and protecting locally important landscapes only part of the picture Risk that there will be a growing gap between the designated and the undesignated An all landscapes approach means it’s important to manage undesignated landscapes too First part of the LLDR process provides valuable information about all an authority’s landscapes – the good, the bad and the ugly Should balance conservation of the best landscapes with measures to – restore and enhance wider landscapes

Thank you