Regulation 19 Rutland Local Plan

Chapter 8 – Sustainable Communities Comment

This chapter covers the unique features and distinctive characteristics which help to make Rutland a special place and vibrant rural county. Sustainable communities are places where people want to live, work and visit, now and in the future. They meet the diverse needs of existing and future residents and contribute to a high quality of life. Sustainable communities should be active, inclusive, and safe, well run, environmentally sensitive, well designed and built, well connected, thriving, well served and fair to everyone.

It is important that the factors which make Rutland a county of vibrant sustainable communities - where people want to, and can, live and work - are protected and enhanced. The plan recognises that the County also needs to continue to change and accommodate new development to ensure that it maintains communities and meets its housing and employment needs. It is important that new development reflects the character of the landscape and promotes high standards of design which meet the County's needs now and in the future.

Protecting Rutland's distinctive landscape

What will the policy do?

Policy SC1 requires new development to reflect the local landscape character which has been identified in the Rutland Landscape Character Assessment 2022, be designed for its local context and to be developed in locations which are less sensitive reflecting the measures outlined in the Landscape Sensitivity Study 2023.

Why is this policy needed?

The government's overarching environmental objective within the NPPF is to protect and enhance our natural, built, and historic environment, including making effective use of land and improving biodiversity.

The NPPF requires plans and decisions to apply a presumption in favour of sustainable development. To ensure that the new Local Plan can promote a sustainable pattern of development that meets the County's development needs and infrastructure, improve the environment, mitigate climate change (including by making effective use of land in urban areas) and adapt to its effects whilst protecting Rutland's distinctive landscape, a set of landscape evidence documents have been prepared to support the policies in this plan and decision making in the future.

Rutland is an attractive place to live and work with varied and distinct landscapes. The County needs to continue to change and accommodate new development to ensure that it maintains communities and meets its housing and employment needs. The market towns of Oakham and Uppingham and the villages throughout the County, and in particular their undeveloped fringes, are under pressure to accommodate new housing and employment.

The Local Plan must, however, balance the development needs of the County with conserving, enhancing, restoring, and re-creating landscape and settlement character. The landscape assessment work has been used to inform decisions about the amount, location, and type of development, informing the choice of suitable site allocations, and the policy approach to protecting the landscape character of the County. It will also provide comprehensive and up to date information to inform landscape management and development management decisions.

The new Local Plan apportions housing and employment growth between the towns of Oakham and Uppingham (and Stamford) and the larger villages. This inevitably leads to the loss of greenfield land and change to the character of the landscape around these settlements. Change may not necessarily be harmful though; development that is carefully designed for its local context has the potential to bring about environmental enhancement and strengthen local landscape character.

Our landscapes vary because of, amongst other variables, their underlying geology, soils, topography, land cover, hydrology, historic and cultural development, and climatic considerations. The combination of characteristics arising from these physical and socio-economic influences, and their often-complex interrelationships, makes one landscape different from another.

Landscape character may be defined as a distinct and recognisable pattern of elements, or characteristics, in the landscape that make one landscape different from another, rather than better or worse. Landscape character assessment is the process of identifying and describing variation in the character of the landscape. It seeks to identify and explain the unique combination of elements and features (characteristics) that make landscapes distinctive. This process results in the production of a Landscape Character Assessment (LCA).

An update of the 2003 Landscape Character Assessment was prepared for Rutland in 2022. This document highlights the characteristics, special qualities and sense of place which contribute to the distinctiveness of Rutland's landscapes and replaces the 2003 Landscape Character Assessment.

Appropriate landscape management objectives for each landscape type are set out to help conserve, enhance, restore, and re-create landscape and settlement character. Areas and landscape features with significant landscape sensitivity to new developments, including renewable energy proposals, are identified, together with those considered to have the ability to absorb new developments. The new landscape classifications are shown in Figure 4 below and are described in Part 1 of the 2022 LCA.

Figure 4 – Rutland Landscape Character Classification

This shows that the five landscape character types (LCTs) A to E identified within the 2003 LCA are still valid, although some of the boundaries have been refined and re-mapped. These are distinct types of landscape that are relatively homogeneous in character, sharing broadly similar combinations of geology, topography, drainage patterns, vegetation, historical land use, settlement pattern, and perceptual and aesthetic attributes.

Part 2 of the LCA identifies and describes the updated landscape character types (LCTs) and landscape character areas (LCAs) and provides guidance for the conservation, enhancement, and restoration of landscape character. Part 2 provides information to those who live, work, or visit the County, and to the general public and others with an interest in the County's rich and diverse landscape; it provides advice to applicants seeking to develop land within the County; and it provides a day-to-day working reference document to guide officers and members of the council when considering the implications of planning applications on the environment. Both parts 1 and 2 of the LCA form an important part of the Local Plan evidence base. Part 2 includes landscape management strategies for each character area, and it is intended that Part 2 will be adopted as SPD to enable it to be used in the determination of planning applications.

In addition to the updated LCA, a strategic Landscape Sensitivity Assessment, July 2023 (LSA) has been prepared, which looks at the sensitivity of the landscape to development around Rutland's towns and larger villages. The purpose of this study is to assist the Council in making informed choices about the suitability of site allocations in landscape terms. The LSA study may also provide support to development management and decision making in the County and may be adopted as SPD.

The LSA considers the sensitivity of settlement fringes around the two towns of Oakham and Uppingham, together with the fringes of the 21 Larger Villages where allocations and larger development proposals are most likely to be located.

The LSA has been used in the assessment of sites for allocation, and where appropriate helps to identify mitigation measures which will be applied to allocations as Development Principles.

Supporting Evidence

Rutland Landscape Character Assessment December 2022
Rutland Settlement Landscape Sensitivity Assessment July 2023