Landscape Institute Planning Reforms - Living with Beauty

In 2020, the Government announced a "complete overhaul" of the planning system - the largest change to how places are planned, designed, and protected in more than a generation. 

Many of these changes respond specifically to the Living with Beauty report, and the ambition to raise the standard of design and "beauty" across the country.  The National Model Design code has now been published. The role of landscape planners and designers, in both the public and private sector, are at the heart of these reforms. 

The Planning Reforms – Living with Beauty conference takes place between 28-30 September 2021, welcoming a diverse and international audience on an accessible online platform. Exceptional thought leaders will gather to debate what the reforms mean for landscape and green infrastructure: including everything from Environmental Impact Assessment to Conservation Areas.

The focus will be on pattern books and design codes, the new policies around flooding and street trees, changes to LVIA and other assessments, the role of the new Design and Placemaking Officers, and the profound way all of this could change the nature of landscape practice.  

Dame Fiona Reynolds DBE, MA, MPhil, Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge will be giving a keynote speech on Beauty and why it matters, providing a glimpse into the way beauty has and needs to shape public policy and discuss how to make beauty central to the way we make decisions for the future.

Clare Warburton, Principal Adviser-Green Infrastructure and Dawn Griffiths, Senior Adviser-Green Infrastructure, Natural England will present on Green Infrastructure Design Guide, providing an update on the project and explore how GI and design standards can be brought together.

Andy Von Bradsky, Director, Von Bradsky Enterprises will explain the National Model Design code, and Dr Rufus Howard, Impact Assessment Policy Lead at Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) will answer a question - Where next for Impact Assessment? EIA, SEA and Planning Reforms.

Other key sessions and speakers will include:

• Planning for climate change adaptation - Katherine Greig, Head of Transition, Flood Re and Dr Matthew Ling, Project Lead, Cambridge Canopy Project, Cambridge City Council
• Delivering BNG through the planning system - Anna Rose MRTPI, Head of the Planning Advisory Service, Local Government Association
• Living with Beauty - Andrew Johnston, Head of Planning, House by Urban Splash; Stephen Kelly, Joint Director of Planning and Economic Development, Greater Cambridgeshire Shared Planning and Harriet Bourne, Director, BBUK Studio

The Landscape Institute are delighted to have a Boughton, Green-tech specifier, Hardscape and Polypipe sponsoring this event and GreenBlue Urban, Jupiter Play and MPDI – Land Journal as supporters.

Visit their website for more information.