Public Practice in practice: The essential role of landscape architects in developing Local Nature Recovery Strategies

Landscape architect Tim Johns signed up as a Public Practice Associate in October 2022. As Senior Policy Officer for North Yorkshire Council, he has been devising a deliverable Local Nature Recovery Strategy.

My role as a landscape architect within the local planning authority of North Yorkshire Council is about building bridges between the technical world of nature specialists and a broad group of stakeholders, including farmers, residents, managers of rivers and woodlands and the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors National Park Authorities. The aim is to synthesise an understanding of what a good nature recovery programme might entail across such diverse landscapes and communities.

The role requires initiative, collaboration, problem-solving and communication: working on the Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) has been about negotiating lots of hurdles and I’ve had to use all four skills in the pursuit of a successful outcome. There is plenty of collaboration, due to the involvement of many different parties. There is also a lot of problem solving. And everyone we talk to around LNRS is on a spectrum: some people know a hell of a lot about nature, some a lot less. Because we have all these different interfaces, we need to adapt our message to each one.

North Yorkshire, the UK’s largest county, has seen a significant decline in wildlife due to loss of habitats caused by a variety of factors: from pollution and pesticide use to development and climate change. Given that the county is 70% farmland, it is reassuring to see how willing some farmers have been to collaborate. Several joined the six workshops the LNRS team ran in spring 2024, with each focusing on a specific habitat. We had a lot of goodwill in the room, which has informed the LNRS proposal that was put out for statutory consultation in May and will be finalised in autumn 2025.

Having had my initial 18-month contract with North Yorkshire Council extended to three years, I hope to be able to play a part in this vital opportunity to create a network of nature-rich sites that are more joined-up across both the county and the country.