Landscapes

This service area is concerned with landscape protection and enhancement.  Herefordshire has a distinctive and varied landscape. Much of the area is rural and lacking settlements, including high hills, forest, commons and riverside meadows. There are a wide range of settlement patterns, different types of farmland and evidence of ancient landscape features in some locations.

We recognise the importance of tranquility and the need to protect and enrich historic landscape character and identity, while incorporating regeneration of rural areas and sustainable development in living communities. Particular attention is given to the landscape setting of Hereford, the market towns and rural settlements and to the role played by green corridors into developed areas. There is a considerable contribution made to landscape character by woodlands, trees, traditional orchards and hedgerow patterns. New development can play a role in landscape enhancement and mitigation through the appropriate use of landscaping schemes.

The service provides landscape advice to other Council departments and to external agencies and organisations. The main aims are to:

• Protect the countryside from unsympathetic and unsustainable development.
• Safeguard landscape character and particular landscapes.
• Enhance damaged and deteriorating landscapes, and secure appropriate beneficial enhancement and management from new development and land use change.
• Identify and protect important settings and views into and from urban and rural settlements.
• Recognise, protect and encourage the appropriate restoration of historic parks, gardens and other historic designed landscapes.
• Protect and enhance landscape features such as woodlands, trees, hedgerows, ditches and ponds.
• Secure appropriate landscaping schemes as part of proposals and ensure their future maintenance.
  

Landscape character is defined as: ‘the distinct and recognisable pattern of elements that occurs consistently in a particular type of landscape, and how this is perceived by people. It reflects particular combinations of geology, landform, soils, vegetation, land use and human settlement. It creates the particular sense of place of different areas of the landscape.’ ¹

The Council has produced a Landscape Character Assessment for the whole county, which was adopted as Supplementary Planning Guidance in 2004 and updated 2009. Part One provides background information, sets landscape character within the planning framework and describes the processes of assessment and evaluation. Part Two describes the Landscape Types upon which some planning policies are based, along with a brief analysis of changing character trends and guidance for future management and development.

¹ (Guidelines for Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment, Second Edition; The Landscape Institute & Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment, 2002).

We assess any planning application that is considered to have a significant effect on the landscape. This is usually based on:

• a site visit
• desk top information
• aerial photographs
• contour information
• the Herefordshire Landscape Character Assessment
• landscape policies contained in the Unitary Development Plan
• relevant supplementary guidelines

In some cases recommendations for special conditions may be made. Submitted planting schemes are agreed and when the landscape work has been carried out it is then inspected. The design and adoption of Public Open Space is subject to procedures which involve a landscape input.

Landscape professionals can be employed at many stages of any project that may have landscape implications – from feasibility studies or masterplans, through to detailed design, construction drawings and overseeing construction work on site. A Landscaping Scheme or Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment (LVIA) is required to be submitted with planning applications in order to maintain the visual amenities of the area and to ensure that new development is appropriately integrated into the existing landscape. 

A landscape evidence base is also being developed for the Council’s emerging Core Strategy and Local Development Framework. As part of this, the landscape officers continue to work with the Planning Policy team and have produced the Urban Fringe Sensitivity Analysis in December 2009.