Natural England

Forest of Dean Integrated Rural Development Pilot Programme (AP03/06)

1.   The Agency’s involvement in the Forest of Dean (FOD) followed a request from DETR in 1997 for advice on how to meet a pre-election “promise” given by Frank Dobson, then Shadow Environment Spokesman, to give the area a form of ‘special status’ that would protect local landscapes whilst supporting regeneration.   This promise by Government followed a vigorous campaign against the possible extension of large scale carboniferous limestone quarrying in the area.

2.   In November 1999 the Agency’s Board considered the background to the request and decided that the complex regeneration issues in the forest demanded a different approach than designation. It agreed to support an integrated approach to rural regeneration and to set up a pilot Integrated Rural Development (IRD) programme to explore how this might work.   In September 2000 the Board confirmed this approach and allocated £1m to the programme over three years.   The history is summarised in Annex 1.   

Progress to date 

3.   There was already a wide range of existing organisations and partnerships working in the FoD, including the Forest Regeneration Partnership.   The Agency was mindful of the need for the IRD initiative to add value and complement existing activity rather than duplicate it.   A considerable amount of time was spent at the beginning of the programme in promoting the initiative to others in the Forest.   We also had to address the disappointment in some quarters that the Agency had not decided to start work towards a statutory designation.   A working definition of IRD was formulated, which essentially says that IRD is a way of working towards sustainable rural regeneration and development, not a prescribed process or recipe. (See Annex 2 for the full definition)   In 2001 the FMD outbreak delayed action on the core aspects of the programme by about 6 months.

4.   Since April 2000 more than £1.1 million of Agency funds have been spent in the FoD to develop and inform a locally based way of recognising and safeguarding the special qualities of the Dean’s landscape and heritage, which also contributes to local economic and community regeneration.   Other Agency programmes such as RTPs, Vital Villages and LHI have also been active in the FoD.   (See Annex 3 for a financial summary)

5.   The IRD programme sought to find ways of using existing powers and mechanisms to deliver locally based solutions that would recognise and safeguard the special qualities of the FoD.   To do this we concentrated on: 

(i)   building a robust information base, to help us understand what makes the FoD special;

(ii)    influencing the revision of local planning policy; and 

(iii) establishing some quick win projects to demonstrate that the landscape and heritage of the FoD could be a significant driver of regeneration.

The goal was to demonstrate lessons that could be applied nationally in areas of similar deprivation.

6.   The information base includes a new Landscape Character Assessment (LCA), which is supported by baseline biodiversity, archaeology and historic landscape surveys, and by an innovative community based project ‘Dean by Definition’. (See Annex 4 for further details).   Both the LCA and ‘Dean by Definition’ were completed towards the end of 2002.   The District Council have agreed to use the LCA to revise their landscape Supplementary Planning Guidance (SPG).   We are currently exploring ways of using the results of ‘Dean by Definition’ in community planning at a range of levels.

Monitoring and Evaluation

7. Monitoring has been handled through an internal Agency steering group and through regular reports to the Forest Regeneration Partnership.

8. Evaluation of the programme as a whole has been undertaken by Countryside and Community Research Unit (CCRU) at the University of Gloucestershire.   This contract is steered by an external advisory group of representatives of our key partners, set up to bridge the last stages of the initial three years of the programme and the first few months of the next phase.  

9. The evaluation report concludes that:

(i)   The £1 million has been well spent.   Much good collaborative work has been done.   The programme has made a significant contribution to social and economic regeneration in the area and provides a platform for future progress in landscape and environmental conservation; 

(ii)   Due to the programme’s slow start and the effects of FMD in 2001, the period for constructive work has been quite limited; thus the programme has contributed to the ‘special status’ debate without resolving it.   It is also too early to predict how far the suite of baseline studies is capable of influencing the programmes of partner agencies. It would be wrong to terminate the programme at this stage.

Special status

10.   In its decision in 2000, the Board said that it would look again at the possibility of starting the process of designating an AONB in 2003. Having already accepted that there are landscapes of AONB quality in the FoD, the key question now is whether a statutory designation is appropriate.   Just because there are outstanding landscapes there is no duty to designate. The conclusions drawn from baseline studies (which provide a good overview of what makes the FoD special), from our experience in running the programme and from the consultants who have advised us, is that an AONB may not be an appropriate solution to the issues facing the FoD district. There are 3 main reasons:

(i)                     The primary purpose of AONB designation is to conserve and enhance natural beauty (p7, CA 24).   The district as a whole would not meet the criteria.   Focusing on natural beauty misses the point: what makes the FoD so special is the intimate association between cultural heritage, tradition, landscape and communities.  

(ii)                The things that make the FoD special occur across the district.   In such a diverse and complex place the inclusive IRD approach, underpinned by the Landscape Character Assessment and other baseline studies, may be more appropriate than an AONB designation.   Moreover, the process of designating an AONB could widen existing divisions.

(iii)              We are on track to define a way of recognising and safeguarding the special qualities of the FoD, that is embedded in local systems and communities and uses existing powers and mechanisms.   However the IRD model does not yet demonstrate clear mechanism to achieve this.   This is why we believe that the time is not yet right to make a final decision on designation.   Our approach is in line with Government’s emphasis on ‘bottom up’ measures, community planning and the proposed revisions to the planning process.   The IRD programme in the FoD should be a timely example of these principles in action, and will be a good source of lessons for other parts of rural England.  

Lessons learnt           

11.   These are the key lessons from the first phase of the IRD programme: 

(i) The Forest of Dean is special because of the complex interrelationships between landscape, sense of place, natural and cultural heritage and tradition.

(ii)   An AONB designation is not necessarily an appropriate way of addressing the issues facing the FoD;

(iii)   In a complex, diverse area such as this, it takes time to establish experimental programmes;

(iv)   Key projects have demonstrated ways of using landscape, environment and heritage to underpin regeneration and the building of social capital;

(v)   The lack of robust, comprehensive baseline information at the start of the programme meant that considerable time and resources had to be spent filling these gaps;

(vi)   We are not yet ready to commend the IRD model for use nationally.

Way ahead

12.   We need to show that the IRD approach can produce effective, locally embedded ways of delivering a form of ‘special status’ that recognises and protects the FoD’s special qualities.   To do this we will work with local and regional partners to develop a package of linked measures, informed by the baseline studies.   For example, there is already a commitment to revise landscape SPG.   On the other hand we have only just started discussing ways of using the results of Dean by Definition in community planning.   Developing this package will take up to a year.

13.   We need to continue to support, for a limited period, local initiatives in which we are already involved, where these embody the principles of IRD.

14.   As well as making a difference in the Forest of Dean, we need to focus on learning lessons for wider use in the rest of rural England.

15.   If the Board accepts the recommendations in this paper, the next steps will be:

(i)   Confirm the IRD Business Plan for 2003-04. 

(ii)   Negotiate Memoranda of Agreement with our main partners, setting out the targets for the next phase, including appointing a locally based project officer.

(iii)   Maintain the External Advisory Group until at least the end of June 2003, to oversee the transition from the first to the second phases of the programme.

Risks and mitigation measures 

16.    ensure terms of Memoranda of Agreement have clear targets; revise the communications and public relations strategy and implement a programme of events that will engage and involve local people; prepare a clear strategy for local continuation of the project without the Agency assistance.

17.     Deferring a decision about AONB designation may antagonise a sector of the local community.  use a programme of public engagement to draw different voices together.

18.     Not learning lessons for wider application in rural England.  

Annex 1

COUNTRYSIDE AGENCY INVOLVEMENT IN THE FOREST OF DEAN 

A BRIEF HISTORY

Ÿ          1947           Hobhouse Report names Forest of Dean as potential conservation area.

Ÿ          1960s          Forest of Dean included in investigation of boundary for Wye Valley AONB, but omitted from designation in 1971.

Ÿ          1997           Widespread local concern in FoD when areas on carboniferous limestone were identified as areas of search for new quarries by GlosCC, as part of their work towards their Minerals Local Plan.

Ÿ          1997           Pre general election:   Frank Dobson (shadow environment) offered Forest of Dean a form of ‘ “custom built” special status’.

Ÿ          1998           Government asked CoCo to look again at the Forest of Dean and make recommendations on how broad aims and objectives behind special status might be achieved.

Ÿ          Oct 1998 - April 1999       Land Use Consultants commissioned by CoCo to produce study entitled ‘Forest of Dean: Review of Special Status’.

Land Use Consultants’ summary recommendations:

(i)   Special Status is justified;

(ii)   The geographic area covered by Special Status should be based on the boundary of the Hundred of St Briavels, an historical area which includes the statutory Forest, the outer ring of settlements and associated unwooded landscape types 

(iii)   Extensive consultation should take place on the actual boundary;

(iv)   AONB status for this area was recommended, but interpreted ‘in a new and imaginative way to enhance social, cultural and economic as well as environmental objectives’.

Ÿ          Nov 1999               The Countryside Agency Board:

(i)   ‘recognised the special qualities of the Forest of Dean, as a cultural landscape, which were certainly equal to the qualities of other areas that had been designated as AONBs;

(ii)   ‘decided, nevertheless, not to launch an AONB designation process at this stage, but to advise Gloucestershire County Council to regard the Forest of Dean as if it were an AONB for the purpose of the county’s minerals local plan enquiry;

(iii)   ‘commissioned further work by officers on a new, integrated approach to rural regeneration in the Forest of Dean, as a pilot that might feature in the rural white paper.’ (M 99/37)

·                                   Sept 2000    The Countryside Agency Board again considered the Forest of   Dean. 

‘Summing up the discussion the Chairman said that the Board were unanimous on the objective of a programme of work to meet the local needs of the Forest of Dean.   On balance, they believed that this could best be achieved through the integrated rural development approach set out in the paper.   It was right, however, that the Agency should monitor and evaluate the pilot integrated rural development project and be ready to return to the designation issue in three years time.   At that point the difference between the IRD approach and a new deal for AONBs approach would be clearer.   In the interim, the Agency should make special efforts to help the district council devise appropriate policies for the local plan revision they had just started.   The decision would need careful presentation to meet the likely concerns of national and local audiences.’ (AP 00/35)

An Annex to the Board Paper included a draft budget for a three year IRD project (April 2000 - March 2003) of £1 million, including project officer costs.   This figure was publicised widely after the Board meeting.

                                                                                                                Annex 2

COUNTRYSIDE AGENCY WORKING DEFINITION OF IRD

The Countryside Agency currently sees IRD as both:

(i)   a way of treating rural areas holistically, crossing sectoral boundaries and dealing with both people and places; and

(ii)   an approach to securing sustainable development in the countryside.   It is a way of thinking about how policies should be developed and delivered rather than any particular type of project.

In addition it should:

(i)    allow for genuine engagement with rural communities and their aspirations;

(ii)   develop the capacity of communities to take greater charge of their future;

(iii)   address the inter-connected nature of rural and urban development, re-engaging all stakeholders in the countryside; and

(iv)   adhere to the concepts of sustainable development.

Using the DETR’s four sustainable development needs as a base [1], and drawing upon three underlying principles derived from the Peak District’s IRD project [2] as well as the outcomes of an internal working group, the Countryside Agency has developed the following working definition of IRD:

‘IRD is a way of working that seeks to deliver sustainable development in rural areas by benefiting social, economic and environmental objectives, bringing equal benefits to all three wherever possible, whilst seeking to avoid damage to any one of them.   It embodies the principles of:

(i)    integration - through integrating policies or developing a ‘package’ of linked policies designed both to harmonise different interests and to achieve economic, social and environmental objectives;

(ii)   individuality - acknowledging local circumstances, reflecting an area’s distinctive character, priorities, problems and opportunities; and

(iii)   involvement - emphasising active inclusion of local communities, drawing upon self-help rather than reliance on external action. 

(iv)   investment - in order to raise the ‘capital’ of rural areas to equitable and sustainable levels. The word ‘capital’ in this context denotes social, economic and environmental capital.

The Forest of Dean IRD programme has also explored the use of a fifth principle -  

innovation – devising new ways to bring sectors together, engage with communities, resource development, deliver outcomes, monitor and evaluate, allowing for the continual evolution of the concepts of integration within individual groups and organisations.

Annex 3

FINANCIAL SUMMARY

See seperate table

Annex 4

FOREST OF DEAN – SUMMARY OF BASELINE STUDIES

This Annex is an edited extract from CCRU’s evaluation report.

1.   The Landscape Character Assessment

This piece of research was commissioned by the Agency to provide a ‘district-wide record of existing landscape character’. The idea was to generate a ‘landscape typology’ using the tools of GIS (Geographical Information Systems). This was to be of use in two principal ways – to produce further rigorous evidence to help the impending (2003) reconsideration of the Special Status issue; and to feed into the existing land-use planning process, perhaps by means of its formal adoption as ‘Supplementary Planning Guidance’.

The work   was undertaken by Landscape Design Associates in association with officers from the district and county councils, and was completed in November 2002. It drew on earlier work, notably the Historic Landscape Assessment (see below). In addition the consultants liaised with the team undertaking the ‘Dean by Definition’ study (also, see below). But close links remain to be made between these two rather disparate pieces of landscape related work –   one a systematic consideration of the detailed geography of character, the other a qualitative survey of popular perceptions and concerns.

The District Council commissioned some follow-on work – a strategy document which would give more guidance on the forces generating landscape change and on some associated planning and management implications for the local authorities and the main resource management agencies.

The LCA report comprises an authoritative and detailed description and assessment of the district’s landscape character and received very favourable comments in our enquiries. But as yet it has not fed significantly into policy. (It was completed only four months ago). Clearly it will be a useful tool in the impending reconsideration of ‘Special Status’ and of the delineation of any designated area. (An appendix to the present paper, by Professor Paul Selman, expands on that.) It seems to have come a little too late to feed significantly into the current ‘Local Plan’ process, but active consideration is being given by the District Council to its possible adoption as ‘Supplementary Planning Guidance’.

This was an innovative project, run to a parallel timetable (it too was completed in November 2002) and undertaken by a consortium of local organisations led by the Forest Business Education Partnership. Its aim was to establish what it is that local people consider to be special about the Forest of Dean. It was launched in a climate of some scepticism – ‘what good will it do?’ – but its product is now widely admired as a valuable collation of local perceptions and concerns about the local culture and environment and as a brave attempt to crystallise the essence of the area’s ‘special-ness’. 

It employed a variety of tools – questionnaire surveys (over 1,200 people interviewed on a one-to-one basis), photography and video, artistic and writing projects, a presence at some 50 local events and meetings, a web-site, and the (celebrated!) persuasion of pub-goers to record their views on beer-mats. The project tried hard, and with some success, to reach out to those social groups which are usually underrepresented in such research.

The output is a report that is rather richer in detail than in the considered extraction of underlying messages (but see Paul Selman’s paper in annex which itself extracts a good deal in that respect). Much is made of local people’s valuation of ‘people’ and ‘place’ – and of the area’s distinctive past, heritage, rights, tranquillity, access, freedom etc.

Again, as with the Landscape Character Assessment, the report provides valuable contextual material to inform the Special Status debate, without of itself providing unambiguous guidance. But it would be a pity if it were only examined in that connection. There seems much of value here to inform the preparation of the district’s Community Strategy and other district wide planning documents, including in due course the ‘Local Development Framework’. Also, where locality-specific information exists, this can feed into parish   and market town plans. Moreover resource management agencies, notably Forest Enterprise, may find material of help to them. In short, we see considerable scope for a further winnowing of the Dean by Definition report and data base, and its focused dissemination. It appears that some further wo rk is in hand in that respect.

This county-wide project’s aim was to ‘characterise the present landscape in terms of the visible evidence of human processes which have formed through time, to inform a range of   planning, conservation and management initiatives and strategies’. In essence the task was to map the mosaic of historic landscapes in the county.

Begun in 1999 (i.e. before the FODIRD programme was conceived) it was undertaken by the County Council’s Archaeological Service and brought to completion in 2001 with the help of some FODIRD funding specifically for the Forest of Dean element. A condition of that funding was that the work should feed into the subsequent Landscape Character Assessment, which it duly did; the authors of the latter study confirmed that the Historic Landscape Assessment data base had been a key input to their own work. Thus, largely via its incorporation into that work, the Historic Landscape Assessment also provides material to inform the Special Status debate and to guide a range of land-use and landscape decision-making.

The aim of this study has been to collate archaeological and industrial heritage information for the area and thereby to inform strategic and local management policies of the local authorities and the resource management agencies. Undertaken by the Archaeological Service of the County Council, the work was begun in January 2002 and is still ongoing. Completion is anticipated for summer 2003 with possible further work, particularly in association with community groups, in 2004/5. Some of its work has already fed into the Landscape Character Assessment.

The project has developed a strong ‘community outreach’ component seeking both to encourage and embrace the work of independent field researchers and local organisations notably the Dean Archaeology Group, and to raise the interest and awareness of local people without specialist knowledge. One respondent referred to ‘growing community involvement which is almost self generating’. Another regretted that ‘this is essentially a limited desk-based piece of work without the money for field surveys’.

The aim of this work has been to assimilate and collate habitat and species data pertaining to the Forest of Dean and thereby to provide an accurate information base for various agencies and organisations with planning or resource management responsibilities in the district. It should prove useful both to the local authority planners concerned with land-use and to the major users of land themselves, notably Forest Enterprise.   Undertaken by the Gloucestershire   Wildlife Trust in association with the District Council and English Nature, as well as the County Council and Forest Enterprise which has fed in information, this two year project, begun in 2001, is also 

At the request of the District Council and of the Forest Regeneration Partnership, the Agency jointly (with SWERDA) funded in 2002 a study of the district’s potential for an expansion of sustainable tourism. The report, which has been generally well received as a rigorous and far-sighted piece of work, was completed in September 2002.

The consultants’ basic aim was to identify sustainable tourism opportunities and to develop an action plan around them. Most significantly their study identified the apparent strengths of the forest from a tourism viewpoint and urged a coherent marketing approach. Sixteen possible projects were outlined, relating to accommodation, leisure activities which add value to the forest environment , marketing and management. 

Their findings and recommendations have subsequently been examined by a working group of the relevant agencies, notably the District Council, the Countryside Agency, the Regional Development Agency and Forest Enterprise with a view to developing a ‘tourism strategy’. At the time of writing a draft strategy has emerged but it does not of itself reveal sufficient commitment and adequate funding to ensure that real concerted action will be taken to implement a concerted and imaginative tourism development strategy. Clearly further work remains to be done.

Annex 5

FOREST OF DEAN MAP

See separate map

[1]DETR (1999) A Better Quality of Life: a strategy for sustainable development of the UK, London, Stationery Office, Command Paper Cm 4345

[2]Errington, A (2000) Two Villages, Two Valleys, Too Early? Unpublished Research Paper; University of Plymouth (summary of major research commissioned by the Countryside Agency).