The Dark Mountain Project

New web site for the Dark Mountain Project, 'a  network of writers, artists and thinkers in search of new stories for troubled times. We promote and curate writing, art, music and culture rooted in place, time and nature'.

New National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF): A sustainable landscape?

Obligatory photo of bucolic countryside required when discussing planning

So, after much recent media debate, the Department for Communities and Local Government has finally announced the new National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) for England, designed to simplify the existing complex planning regulations into a 50 (well 72!) page document.

 Key questions include:

• Is there a presumption in favour of 'sustainable development' and, if so, does it provide clarity on what this means? Or is it potentially a developers charter?

• What safeguards are there for heritage and the natural environment? 

• Does it deliver on the Government's promise to put local communities at the heart of the system? 

• Does it provide a coherent landscape strategy, that includes non-designated areas?

Twitter is a good starting point for comment on the NPPF.

Initial reaction seems to be that there has been a quite a lot of redrafting, with the much trailed bullish and controversial 'default yes' to development dropped in favour of the more measured 'presumption in favour of sustainable development' (the plan all along or a U-turn?).

The focus is on swift approval for sustainable development where it accords with the relevant local authority development plan or where a local plan is absent (which apparently is about 50% of authorities, so this could be a significant issue if these authorities dont get moving). However, there is an exclusion from this presumption for designated areas (eg Green Belt, National Parks, AONB's, SSSI's etc.) or where 'any adverse impacts of doing so would significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits, when assessed against the policies in the NPPF taken as a whole' (one for the lawyers to chew over!).

A Map for England?

Interesting development from the Royal Town Planning Institute: a proposal for a Map for England to identify the spatial impact of Government policies and encourage a joined-up approach to planning, infrastructure and services. Seems a good idea in principle, although the blurb is very much focused on growth and investment, housing, industry and business with no mention of heritage, ecology or landscape.They are looking to stimulate a debate in this area and for feedback on the idea.

Men may come and men may go, but I go on forever

Mountain stream, Wharfedale, Yorkshire Dales

To continue the theme of the last post, water has a centrality not just to landform morphology but also to our relationship with the landscape.

Streams, brooks, rivers, ponds, lakes and the sea are a living, dynamic presence amongst the inanimate soil and rock of the land.

When in an upland valley my vision is always drawn upwards to the fluting gullies carrying the becks and streams down from the boggy high ground to the parent watercourse below. Following such fledglings is an elemental thrill - hand on rock and moss, boots in water - upwards to the source, or downwards to find a way off a mist-shrouded hill; the murmuring water a reassuring companion. Scouting out a spot to stop for lunch on a days walking on the fell is always predicated on finding a watery idyll to hunker down beside. 

Some of the clearest entries in my own landscape memory bank are water-based: a waterlog in effect, with apologies to Roger Deakin. Endless childhood hours playing around a disused sheep-dip on Finham Brook; shudderingly cold skinny-dipping in a mountain lake after a long, hot days ridge-walking taking in Carrauntoohil, Ireland's highest peak; canoeing on the river Wye; crawling behind a waterfall in Venezuela; and two days spent absorbing the visual and aural grandeur of Iguazu Falls. And whilst I have experienced the visceral thrills and spills of coasteering on a couple of occasions, my own personal highlight has been gorge-walking in the Neath Valley, South Wales: following the course of a fast-flowing river up a narrow gorge, scaling boulders, traversing rapids, crawling into tunnels forced through rock by water, and a fully clothed plunge into a waterfall pool as a finale. 

London's Lost Rivers Exhibition

Exhibition in London of the photo's in Tom Bolton's great little book, London's Lost Rivers: A Walker's Guide: Effra, Fleet, Neckinger, Tyburn and all.

Patience (After Sebald)

A bit behind the curve on this; thanks to 'Anonymous' for pointing me in the direction of Patience (After Sebald), a documentary about WG Sebald, the writer of Rings of Saturn (a book that lives up to its mightly reputation). Its directed by Grant Gee, also responsible for Joy Division; so given this and the subject matter I will be seeking it out.

Sound mapping

Interesting post about 'sound mapping' on the Some Landscapes blog; an indication that some of the more intriguing landscape discourse is taking place outside of established disciplines and structures, in the urban-focused psychogeographical sphere.

For anyone who has not looked at Some Landscapes, I would really recommend it as a forum for investigating the interface between landscape and the arts. For those of us who have travelled from a more conventional spatial-temporal perspective, broadening horizons (why is it that so many phrases and cliches are landscape-related?) can only enrich our understanding.

A comedy of landscapes

As I cycled up the 1 in God knows what of Nugent Hill this morning my mind turned to lighter thoughts: how funny is landscape?

And I don't mean those mildly amusing walking books with titles such as Two men and a bog or rural comedy postcards, usually featuring sheep or rain, or both.

A countryside theme can be found in a few conventional television comedies. The Fast Show in particular had several, sometimes quite poignant, sketches in this vein - 'The Rambling Hiker', 'Johnny Nice Painter' and 'Ted and Ralph':

New 'Landscapes'

Returing to the theme of a previous post, the latest issue of Landscapes has just come through my letterbox; always a stimulating read. Graham Fairclough's editorial articulates the journal's balance between continued coverage of its landscape history and archaeology bed-rock, whilst also reflecting wider horizons and inter-disciplinary collaboration in landscape study; emphasising that "...the idea of landscape, the historical understanding of landscape, and a sensibility to landscape change through time, is surely going to be central to political debate well beyond the heritage domain." 

Landscape in Europe

Its great to hear about perspectives on landscape from outside Britain and I am grateful to Guillermo Reher for providing the following information.

Following the successful Landscape Archaeology Conference at Amsterdam's Vrije Universiteit in January 2010 a second conference will be held in Berlin in June at which the proceedings of LAC2010 will be presented. Though it is titled "landscape archaeology", a rich panorama of approaches will be in evidence. 

Another event, the Le:Notre conference in Antalya in April, also looks at wider landscape-related themes from a landscape architecture perspectives.

These events reflect the growing importance of inter-disciplinary landscape study in European research, illustrated by the European Science Foundation's policy briefing on Landscape in a Changing World produced by experts from different fields througout Europe.