The Countryside Agency and its predecessors have a long record of involvement in the rural urban fringe.  We have supporting and developed a raft of measures and tools to enhance its quality and amenity value.
Landscape

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Our involvement in the rural urban fringe

Natural England and its predecessors have a long record of involvement in the urban fringe, supporting and developing a raft of measures and tools to enhance its quality and amenity value.


Examples include:            

  • encouraging local authorities to establish countryside management services which are especially active in urban fringe areas;
  • establishing 250 Country Parks, with a majority close to or abutting urban areas (and now the focus of a 'renaissance' drive supported by the Agency);
  • support for many individual ‘green space’ and ‘green corridor’ schemes linking town and country;
  • establishing 12 Community Forests and rolling out some of the lessons learned through REACT;
  • enabling communities to create their own Millennium and now Doorstep Greens in rural, urban and urban fringe areas; and 
  • a Walking the Way to Health Initiative which uses green spaces close to where people live as venues for healthy walking schemes.                

A number of other programmes do or will enhance the state and significance of the urban fringe, notably: 

  • the Diversity Review, exploring how to support a wider cross section of the population to access and enjoy the countryside and for whom urban fringe green space will be an important facility;   
  • the development of RoW Improvement Plans, which should focus on improved links between town and country when applied to the urban fringe;
  • our work to influence the nature and scope of Local Strategic Partnerships - which may be vital to the successful delivery of urban fringe strategies; 
  • applying monies from the Aggregates Sustainability Fund, including turning urban fringe sand and gravel extraction sites into new country parks;
  • an urban fringe Land Management Initiative (The North East Land Link) within the Great North Community Forest; and
  • research by Planning and Sustainable Development Branch focusing on sustainable urban extension and linked urban fringe planning issues.             

One of the final policy outputs of the former Countryside Commission was ‘Linking Town and Country’ (CCP 546, 1999), which presented an agenda for the ‘countryside around towns’ with lots of recommendation for all levels of government, public bodies and the voluntary sector. Much of that policy advice remains relevant.   However, much has changed since 1999 with the publication of the Urban and Rural White Papers, firmer establishment of a regional agenda within England, and changes to planning policy.  

Related publications:

Sustainable development in the countryside around towns - Volume 1: Main Report

Sustainable development in the countryside around towns - Volume 2: Technical Report