A Landscape Strategy for Lancashire - An Introduction

Landscape

This booklet is a brief introduction to the Landscape Strategy which will be published by Lancashire County Council in February 2001. It comprises two reports, the Landscape Character Assessment and the Landscape Strategy. The Lancashire Landscape Strategy will be complemented by the Lancashire Historic Landscape Characterisation Project which identifies and assesses the historic development of the landscape. More detailed information and maps will also be available.

A Landscape Strategy for Lancashire will help us to understand how the present day landscape has been created. It also aims to help guide landscape change so that it has a positive influence, reinforcing distinctive landscape character and sustaining the most sensitive and valuable parts of the landscape.

The first part of the Landscape Strategy classifies the landscapes of Lancashire and Craven District up to the Yorkshire Dales National Park boundary into 21 distinct Landscape Character Types defined by the physical influences of their geology, topography and ecology and human influences of activity and culture from the stone age to the present day.

Whilst Landscape Character Types are generic and each type may occur in different locations, Landscape Character Areas are specific to a locality and have a distinctive sense of place. Character Areas have been identified in each of the Landscape Character Types, e.g. within the Moorland Plateaux type, South Pennine Moors and High Bowland Plateaux form specific and distinct areas.

The second part of the Strategy deals with strategies and recommendations for landscape conservation, enhancement, restoration or creation for each of the Landscape Character Types. These recommendations are based on an analysis of the key environmental features and forces for change operating in each of the Landscape Character Types.