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The Cotswolds AONB has always been a place of change, influenced by millennia of human endeavour, and will continue to be so in the future. In order to fulfil the purpose of AONB designation, we need to ensure that this change helps to conserve and enhance the natural beauty of the AONB, including its special qualities, landscape character and local distinctiveness.
The Local Distinctiveness and Landscape Change report helps to address this issue by providing guidance on what makes the Cotswolds AONB distinctive from other parts of the country and, at a more local level, what makes one part of the AONB distinctive from another. It has a particular focus on the built environment, describing how different aspects of the built environment – settlements, boundaries, roofs and walls – contribute to local distinctiveness at a number of levels.
It is hoped that this guidance will be used by a wide range of stakeholders – including local authorities, parish councils, landowners and developers – who all have an important role to play in managing change in the AONB. For example, the guidance could be used in the plan-making and decision-taking stages of the town and country planning system to help guide the location, scale, setting and design of new housing developments in the AONB.
The Local Distinctiveness and Landscape Change report can be downloaded in its entirety:
The report can also be downloaded as individual sections: