On 22 November 2023 all designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty in England and Wales became 'National Landscapes'. As such, the Shropshire Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty has been renamed the Shropshire Hills National Landscape. Its legal designation and policy status remain the same.
For pre-application advice, the Council’s Development Management Team should be your first point of contact.
The National Landscape Partnership is not able to offer advice on development proposals at a pre-application stage. The Partnership will not generally provide any endorsement which may be cited in a planning application as giving our support.
Shropshire Council may require for certain types of development a Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment (LVIA), sometimes as part of a wider Environmental Statement. This is to help inform the determination of the application by the Council, including in relation to the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty designation.
Click below to download the Design Guide for Agricultural Buildings. This focuses mainly on design aspects for new agricultural buildings, but encourages consideration of existing buildings and those of historic value.
Agricultural Buildings Design Guide
The Partnership may choose to comment to the Council on scoping consultations or on LVIA reports, but will not provide routine guidance on the LVIA process. This is established nationally in the accepted methodologies set out in the Landscape Institute and Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment’s third edition “Guidelines for Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment (2013)”. Note that this requires consideration of landscape impacts (recognising landscape as a valuable resource in its own right) in addition to visual impacts.
The Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty designation should be considered not just in relation to visual amenity. The natural beauty remit of the designation includes considerations of biodiversity, heritage, tranquillity and the way in which the many natural and human elements of landscape combine, and these aspects should all be taken into account in relation to decisions affecting the National Landscape. Applicants are recommended to look at relevant policies and sections of the Management Plan.
