Delivering the Land Use Framework
A Rough Guide
March 2026: government publishes Land Use Framework
England now has a Land Use Framework – a process for managing competing demands on land (food, nature, housing, energy) through better decision-making. FFCC first called for one in Our Future in the Land back in 2019, then spent the years since running on-the-ground pilots, publishing reports on how it could work in practice, and running DEFRA-commissioned workshops to support the government's Consultation on Land Use in 2025.
Read the government's final publication here and FFCC's latest briefing here, or explore the Rough Guide below for what we learned along the way.
Rough Guide
What actually happens when you try to make competing demands on land – food, nature, housing, farming livelihoods – work together? This guide brings together learnings from two pilot programmes, in Devon and Cambridgeshire, and from conversations with the people who live with these trade-offs daily: farmers, landowners, local communities, policymakers and other experts. Explore what they found below.
Latest briefings and reports
Why is a Land Use Framework needed?
Land is a limited resource. The Royal Society estimates that the UK would need additional land twice the size of Wales to meet all the targets set by governments over the last few years.
Our research shows that a Land Use Framework - that allows land to provide multiple benefits - is the most promising way to meet the many demands made on land and optimise delivery of social, economic and environmental objectives.
England published its Land Use Framework in March 2026. Scotland produced its first Land Use Strategy in 2011, the first of its kind in the world, and its most recent iteration, Land Use Strategy 4, was published in March 2026. LUS4 offers a vision for Scotland's land, recognising the need for alignment across different sectors in land use decision making, and promises a phase two that will detail how policies across different sectors will work coherently to meet the many demands on land. Wales and Northern Ireland (and the Republic of Ireland) are in the process of developing their own land use decision processes; all are paying attention to the need for strategic and functional interoperability on critical issues at policy, landscape and catchment level.
What is it and how could it work
Our work testing the Land Use Framework process shows it works best based on a set of principles and practices to align top-down and bottom-up priorities, mediate competing pressures and encourage multifunctionality. It can also bring together key data and expertise, and spatial mapping tools, to guide leaders through better decision-making, optimising land use for multiple benefits.
Our Research
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 blogs, briefings, project updates and reports setting out the case for a Land Use Framework with multifunctionality at its heart.
Browse this collection below.
England’s Land Use Framework
FFCC's assessment of the new Land Use Framework for England – and next steps for implementation.
Local actions, better decisions
FFCC's Georgie Barber on breaking down silos in land policy.
Ambitious, transparent and inclusive
What a Land Use Framework must be to enable long-term, resilient change.
Land Use Consultation
Findings from four FFCC-led workshops, commissioned by Defra for its Consultation on Land Use
The seduction of the single metric
Sue Pritchard on delivering better outcomes with a Multifunctional Land Use Framework.
Keeping up with the policies
FFCC’s Georgie Barber on why we need land use coherence.
Where next for the Land Use Framework?
FFCC’s Georgie Barber on how a multifunctional approach to land can help deliver a new government’s most pressing priorities.
MLUF: Case Study Collection
A practitioner case study collection from our action research on Multifunctional Land Use Frameworks.
MLUF Action Research: Leadership Lessons
Leadership findings from our pilot testing of the Multifunctional Land Use Framework (MLUF).