Land Use Framework: Testing the Process

Land managers at different scales – local authorities, large landowners, national parks and others – are facing complex land use decisions. How to meet housing targets, climate goals, biodiversity net gain, infrastructure and transport needs, and food production across limited land?

The gap that exists between planning policy and food and environment policy makes it difficult to bring these different land uses together, to decide what should go where. FFCC has been working with subnational organisations to understand how governance processes that support these multiple objectives can be designed to use land as effectively as possible.

Action research in Devon & Cambridgeshire

From 2020-2023, on the back of research into national Land Use Framework policy design, FFCC was invited by partners in Devon and Cambridgeshire to trial how a Land Use Framework might be designed at the local level. We published a report about this on-the-ground research, as well as three Learning Papers and a Case Studies Collection:

Read the Data & Evidence Learning Paper

Read the Leadership Lessons Learning Paper

Read the Scope & Scale Learning Paper

Read the Case Study Collection

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In Cambridgeshire, a charity trying to provide better rural housing lays out the challenges.

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Building a Community of Practice for land use governance

Decision makers at different levels are facing the challenges created by multiple demands of limited land. Since working with partners in Devon and Cambridgeshire on the Land Use Framework pilots, FFCC has been in contact with local authorities and other practitioners across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland who are facing these challenges, and starting to design processes that support making the best use of the land available.

In September 2024, FFCC convened a group of 18 local authorities, national parks, and other public bodies engaged with land use decisions to share their insights and pool knowledge for land use governance. There was a recognition of the value of sharing what was already working in different places to help make more effective land use decisions, and understand where the gaps are in policy and research.

FFCC continues to work with local authorities and other larger-than-local organisations making strategic land use decisions to share best practice and information. In building this 'Community of Practice', we hope to support decision makers in creating governance processes and informing national policy design. We look forward to sharing insights from this group publicly in due course.

If you are an organisation making strategic land use decisions and would like to be involved, please email georgie.barber@ffcc.co.uk

In the Peak District, sustainable transport campaigners have struggled to get the right people round the table.

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How can a Land Use Framework work in practice?

In our 2019 report Our Future in the Land, FFCC proposed a Land Use Framework to help improve land use decision-making. Since then, we have produced stories, blogs, briefings, project updates and reports setting out the case for a Land Use Framework with multifunctionality at its heart.

In our Field Guide to the Future, we talk to land managers and land use decision makers about their approaches to land use governance – as well as to community leaders about what local citizens need.

Browse all these stories, as well as reports and briefings, below.