Key characteristics

Hedge planting. © The Environment Partnership

From Local Nature Recovery Strategies to Environmental Outcomes Reports, local planning authorities must prioritise Landscape Character Assessment to help shape a vision for long-term positive change.

Landscape is all around us and acts as an integrating framework that encompasses and embraces the interactions of natural, cultural, social, perceptual and aesthetic attributes. It is constantly changing and is the context for, and consequence of, decision-making – providing the spatial framework through which we plan and manage changes to the environment.

Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) is one of the most prominent landscape assessment tools in the UK planning system. First emerging in the early 1990s, LCA was designed “to be a framework for helping to incorporate the rich heritage of landscape diversity into present day decisions….”. An understanding of landscape character provides baseline evidence to inform land use planning, design and land management and is a crucial tool in managing and conserving the distinctiveness of landscapes.

The approach to LCA has shifted in recent years towards a more integrated approach that provides a holistic, ‘joined-up’ approach that considers visual, historic and ecological aspects of the landscape equally.

The need to incorporate landscape considerations into environmental decision-making has long been recognised but is now more urgent than ever. Climate change, biodiversity loss, evolving environmental policies and the government’s target to build 1.5 million new homes by 2029 all place increasing pressure on our landscapes.

Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRS) were introduced in the Environment Act 2021 and propose how and where to recover nature and improve the wider environment across England. National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty have been identified as being particularly suitable areas for nature recovery. LNRS could adopt a LCA approach, with the results used to help identify areas suitable for targeted habitat restoration and biodiversity enhancement initiatives. This approach has already been used in North Northamptonshire, where LCA has been used to inform the design and priorities of LNRS. This approach strengthens local identity and sense of place to provide nature recovery that supports the distinctive characteristics of the area.

The Levelling Up and Regeneration Act was enacted in October 2023 and introduced a new form of environmental assessment known as Environmental Outcome Reports (EORs). Its aim is to streamline the process of environmental assessment by focusing on measuring environmental effects and assessing how a project will contribute to specific environmental goals set out by the government. While there has been little progress on the move towards EORs to date, the December 2024 Development and Nature Recovery working paper confirms that there are plans to advance their implementation and adopt a more ‘strategic approach’ to development.

The need to incorporate landscape considerations into environmental decision-making has long been recognised but is now more urgent than ever.

The suggested move towards EORs, with more emphasis on meeting objectives, implies there will be clear existing baselines from which to make assessments and measure progress. The Landscape Institute’s volunteer-led Landscape Character Assessment Database project highlights disparities in the scale, age and level of detail contained within existing LCA documents. This complicates the description and evaluation of landscape character, leading to an inconsistent approach to landscape planning and management across different scales and between authorities. Local planning authorities without an up-to-date LCA should prioritise updating these ahead of the implementation of EORs. This is further reinforced by the plan-making Planning Practice Guidance (updated February 2025) that states: “All planning policies and decisions need to be based on up-to-date information about the natural environment and other characteristics of the area.”

Under the new approach, planning decisions will be informed by how projects respond to environmental objectives. Exactly how these objectives are set, and at what level, is currently unclear, and in areas without a current LCA this is likely to pose a particular challenge.

Monitoring will be required to verify whether the effects of a development on the environment are as predicted in the EOR. This is likely to present further challenges, and it is unclear whether it will be the local planning authority or developer who will be responsible for monitoring.

In 2024 Natural England introduced a composite indicator to assess changes in landscape and waterscape character. This tool measures changes in the physical, visual, cultural and experiential qualities of England’s 159 National Character Areas and provides a framework for evaluating how well these areas are achieving key outcomes.

While some outcomes are easily measurable (e.g. area of woodland planted), many important aspects of landscape character (e.g. associations, sight, smell and sound) are perceptual and therefore not easily measured. The importance of people’s perception of landscape is emphasised by the European Landscape Convention, which defines landscape as “…an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors”.

Looking ahead, the most valuable LCAs will be those that account for the dynamic nature of landscapes and consider future forces for change. In the context of climate change and the biodiversity emergency there is a need to move away from objectives that aim to conserve and enhance the landscape and instead to consider the opportunities for creating new landscapes. There is potential for LCA to adopt a more dynamic baseline, recognising that landscapes are not fixed and could change more rapidly than they have in the past. LCAs can support nature recovery by identifying opportunities for habitat creation, restoration and connectivity across character areas, and an integrated approach could also consider how landscapes might deliver multiple ecosystem services. The integration of climate change scenarios and consideration of how landscapes may alter can also help to inform future land management guidelines.

As the planning system seeks to balance development with environmental sustainability, landscape-led approaches should play a fundamental role in shaping the future. Rather than only being seen as part of the evidence base, or as a tool to restrict change, LCA can be used to shape the vision for long-term change.

As the planning system seeks to balance development with environmental sustainability, landscape-led approaches should play a fundamental role in shaping the future.

To achieve this, greater education and awareness around LCA across the environmental sector is urgently required. A consistent and holistic approach at all scales would provide a robust baseline to underpin the landscape assessment and monitoring that is required to address the climate and biodiversity emergencies.