6 minute read
A Landscape Planning Masterclass
A holistic approach on how to reduce landscape impact, enrich your site for nature, and mitigate biodiversity net gain and nutrient neutrality in one fell swoop.
Over the past decade at Crown and Canopy, we have designed sites and developments from a low impact, environmentally sound perspective – along with significant ecological gains through biodiversity enhancement plans. However, going forwards, this will be embedded in England’s planning law at a much higher level.
As of April 1st 2024, in England, there will be a requirement under planning law to formally calculate and mitigate the impact of development on the environment through the Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) calculation process.
Even though this policy is now coming into play, there has been a requirement in place for some time to offset and mitigate the impact of development through the planning process. As a company, we have been in full support of this approach long before it became a policy requirement – not least as it fits with our ideals and love of natural landscapes – because it often strengthens and benefits the business case. After all, what would a glamping site be without nature? Has a plain grass field, or the corner of an arable field ever been enough to create a truly magical setting for a glamping site? Not in our view.
Through habitat enhancements, we have created wildflower meadows, restored peatland, planted native woodlands, and built bat bunkers to name a few, and in doing so, we have found this significantly boosts the appeal of a site to guests. A cabin in a field is one thing – a cabin set within a significantly enhanced natural environment is another. We tend to stray away from any kind of formal landscaping around a site and instead, focus on creating a wild environment.
After all, what would a glamping site be without nature? Has a plain grass field, or the corner of an arable field ever been enough to create a truly magical setting for a glamping site? Not in our view.
Landscape enhancements, such as tree planting, also play a key role in mitigating landscape visual impact. In addition, we tend to utilise existing vegetation through the site design process to further the case. These properties can also aid the privacy element for guests providing them with a private setting for outdoor experiences where they can relax, roam, and bath in nature undisturbed. This private feel without overlooking or being in the line of sight of man-made development contributes towards higher occupancy and nightly rates.
Creating ponds, lakes, and wetlands can also be a great way of increasing the environmental value of a site whilst enhancing its appeal to guests. Sites beside the water tend to be some of the highest performing spaces in the sector as wild swimming can be very popular with guests as a key feature. Add a sauna and an outdoor bathtub to this, and you create a dreamy environment to observe the magic of nature.
Water pollution has also been a hot topic in the world of policy in recent years, and we have seen the development and implementation of the nutrient neutrality calculators now become a formal part of the planning process in the UK. The thinking behind this is sound in our view, but one has to say, this should have been part of policy for the past 20+ years to effectively protect our precious watercourses.
When forming a planning application, we now calculate the potential phosphate and nitrate discharge through the proposed foul water systems for developments. This can be reduced by designing in ecologically sound systems, such as package treatment plants. In some cases, we mitigate impacts entirely through the replacement of existing and outdated septic systems, depending on the proposal. However, in most cases, one must mitigate the impact on site by setting aside land from intensive commercial use of various kinds to nature and green purposes.
This can improve the appeal and quality of a site but sometimes landowners and developers simply don’t own enough land to mitigate on site and when this occurs, the only option is to purchase nutrient credits. Whilst this may sound simple, the reality is that credits are in short supply across the country and, when they can be purchased, they are often very expensive. We approach sites with this in mind from the beginning, creating the most environmentally sound approach, resulting in the lowest offset requirement.
Even though these requirements do present new challenges, there is also the potential to create a win-win situation where the required policy compliance also results in a fantastic and high performing glamping site.
The next big topic: BNG. In a matter of weeks, any planning application for this kind of development will have to use either the Small or Main Site Metrics calculator depending upon the scale of development, or the complexity of the habitat you may be working within. There is a general requirement to deliver at least 10% net gain from a project, but a number of councils have applied a 20% rule. Once the number of credits has been established through the tool, mitigation can either take place on site or credits can be purchased off site, much the same as the nutrient neutrality process.
Even though these requirements do present new challenges, there is also the potential to create a win-win situation where the required policy compliance also results in a fantastic and high performing glamping site. Creating nature rich environments can also feed positively into the new agricultural policy, and in some cases, our clients are going a step beyond.
We have had the pleasure of working on numerous rewilding projects and more recently BNG projects where farms or estates are creating credits and significant rewilding schemes as a form of generating new and significant income through landscape recovery.
What we have found, is there is a complete symbiosis between these schemes and outdoor based accommodation. When designed correctly, glamping developments can nestle on the edge of these projects and act as low impact commercial funding mechanisms, contributing towards a high-income generating landscape that has much greater income potential than monocultural land management.
This polycultural approach is the future, and while we certainly still need to produce food, grow livestock, and work on the land, there must be space and respect for nature.
Learn more at crownandcanopy.co.uk.
