Before Parliament rose for recess, FFCC hosted a gathering of engaged parliamentarians to catch up on the progress of the long-awaited Land Use Framework. Now likely to be published this autumn, there has been a clear surge in interest in a Land Use Framework that is integral to the flurry of spatial strategies in the major bills going through Parliament. The Planning and Infrastructure Bill, the Strategic Spatial Energy plan, the Environment Improvement Plan, the English Devolution Bill - all of these will have a huge impact on land use, and therefore how the Land Use Framework is put into practice.

A few years ago, land use and land use decision making were a taboo subject. Yet here – as with the consultation events we ran through the Spring, there was a lot of energy in the room and in discussions. Now, people want to talk about the detail of delivery. How would a Land Use Framework interact with the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, especially given the existing spatial components of the planning system? How will a Land Use Framework operate at the new Strategic Authority level – as proposed in the English Devolution bill – to allow stronger regional approaches, supporting the needs of local communities and focusing on regional strengths? Importantly, there was widespread agreement that a Land Use Framework needs to work across sectors and ensure joined up delivery on the ground.

This agreement extends to stakeholders in places all around the country. As part of FFCC’s work on the Consultation on Land use, we ran four workshops in Cumbria and Northumberland, Cambridgeshire, Devon and Gloucestershire, to explore the issues and respond to questions in the consultation. Whilst some concerns are different, many others were the same. Water-stressed Cambridgeshire, with its substantial house building targets, is facing different challenges from Devon and its management of its uplands and flood risks, for example - yet both talked about how to involve more landowners and managers in the strategic responses to these national critical issues. A Land Use Framework needs to function across all uses of land, it needs to operate at a larger-than-local scale to truly grasp the local needs and skills. And it must be more than data and maps and information – it must also be a process for delivery, a mechanism that considers the underlying economics, skills and structures that enable long term, resilient change.

FFCC has been working with local and larger-than-local organisations who are already trying to resolve the dilemmas inherent in managing so many demands on limited land. Many of these organisations are creating their own processes to bring different sectors and land use decision makers together, to create places that work for local people and contribute towards national concerns like climate and housing targets. But the absence of a nation-wide process to join up these siloed demands into a coherent framework is a barrier to progress.

Land is foundational to national prosperity and is arguably our most precious resource. Land use decisions, made by many and diverse land owners and managers, determines whether the government can meet its housing and climate and other targets, but it also shapes how people live prosperous and healthy lives. Pejorative terms like NIMBYs (Not In My Back Yard) or the new trope ‘builders not blockers’ imply that people will tend to reject development. But FFCC’s work suggests that people aren’t against development per se, they just want development that fits their needs. People want communities that work for them: futureproofed homes, where their children can afford to live and work, with community space and the facilities they need. They don’t want bland, featureless housing estates where everyone needs a car and essential services are stretched.

This is what a Land Use Framework needs to be: an enabling framework that brings the best information and insights from many sources – national, local, technical, lived experience – to optimise land use decisions. It must cover much more than just a national database of soil productivity or forestry to make our climate targets add up on paper. It needs to bring these different sectors together to support decision makers to actually put all of these things – houses, food, trees, energy – in place, in a way that meets both local needs and government targets. It must work with, and alongside, the various bills currently under scrutiny in Parliament. It needs imagination, ambition and political will to fully realise its potential.

The great news is that all of these new policies and legislation that have huge impacts on land are being written and reviewed now, concurrently. Now is the moment to lay the groundwork for a more sustainable future, a coherent vision that will deliver – across sectors – for people and planet. FFCC is already working with organisations and places grappling with this, and we continue to highlight their insights and expertise in Westminster to make sure that national policy can enable stronger outcomes on the ground.