National Landscapes (AONB).
Landscapes designated for their national importance, renamed National Landscapes in 2023. Great weight goes to conserving their beauty, and major development is exceptional by policy.
- Small-scale infill in keeping with local character
- Conversion and reuse of existing buildings
- Development that enhances landscape character
- Anything visible on a skyline or valley side
- Material changes in scale or massing
- Lighting in dark-sky areas
- Major development without exceptional circumstances
- Standard suburban house types
- Schemes reliant on extensive engineering
Every public body has a statutory duty to seek to further the conservation and enhancement of natural beauty in these areas. In planning terms, great weight is given to conserving landscape and scenic beauty, and the scale and extent of development within them should be limited.
Major development is to be refused other than in exceptional circumstances and where it can be demonstrated to be in the public interest — a test that considers need, the scope for developing elsewhere, and the detrimental effect on the landscape.
A landscape and visual impact assessment is the document that decides these applications. Commission it early enough that it shapes the scheme rather than justifies it — a design that responds to the assessment is far more defensible than one that answers it afterwards.
How schemes actually fare inside this designation — approval rates, appeal survival, which authorities apply it hardest — needs the designation joined to the decision record. That join isn’t built, so those figures aren’t published here. We won’t estimate them.
Outside London this is often the single biggest determinant of what a site can carry.