Purpose

The Council’s existing Landscape
Character Assessment SPD was adopted in 2008, and its content is
now dated. Since that time there have been some notable changes to
the landscape and new guidance has been produced by Natural England
on how landscape character assessments should be prepared.
Consultants LUC (Land Use Consultants) were
appointed in 2022 to prepare a new LCA for the District. The final
report was received in November 2023 with the intention of taking
it forward to public consultation as a new SPD entitled Landscape
Character Assessment.
However, the government at the time was preparing the Levelling-up
and Regeneration Bill which set out a series of planning reforms,
including the proposal to discontinue SPDs and partially replace
them with Supplementary Plans
To enable the SPD to be adopted, the Council must undertake a
formal public consultation in accordance with Regulation 12 of the
Town and Country Planning (Local Planning) (England) Regulations
2012 (as amended). This decision sheet requests that the
delegated
powers of the Strategic Director for Growth and the Assistant
Director (Planning, Transportation and Highways) be used to approve
the attached documents and agree a four-week public consultation on
the SPD in November/December 2025.

Content

i) That the Landscape Character Assessment
Supplementary Planning
Document (SPD) is published for a formal four-week public
consultation period between Monday 10th November and Monday 8th
December 2025;