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Community Landscape Character Statements can help to put landscape character at the heart of the local planning system. We have prepared this Step-By-Step Guide to get you started and show the process and benefits of preparing a Statement. Order the full 'Unlocking the Landscape' action pack for more detailed guidance on community involvement and compatibility with the planning process.

This report sets the foundation for our work on landscape, providing a clear definition of what is meant by countryside character and describing how it can be promoted through recent policy developments. The report also provides powerful illustrations of the value of England’s diversity of landscapes.

This full colour illustrated booklet is essential reading for all interested in preventing the suburbanisation of our rural areas and in safeguarding the beauty of the countryside. The Cluttered Countryside explores a wide range of small-scale developments – road-signs, advertisements, caravans, telecommunications masts, farm sheds, pylons and power lines – which together can have a highly damaging impact on the quality of the rural environment. A comprehensive list of recommendations targeted at national Government, local-planning authorities, highways authorities and the private sector, indicates how we can free the countryside from unnecessary clutter.

Unlocking the landscape is designed to put landscape character at the the heart of the local planning system. The comprehensive toolkit can help you prepare a Community Landscape Character Statement, a new process we have developed to give local communities a say in the future of their local countryside. Local knowledge and aspirations are a central part of this process, but recorded information must be compatible with the planning process. The pack includes guidance, a sample statement and a MAC/PC compatible CD-ROM.