Urban Landscape Planning and Townscape Character Assessment

It is now widely accepted that protection of `sense of place' is important in decision making. Character appraisal is an invaluable tool in understanding and evaluating the significance of a place and this can be applied to the urban as well as the rural environment.

The importance of assessing townscape character is reflected in Government Policy, for example through PPG15, as well as through publications such as By Design (DETR & CABE 2000), Power of Place (English Heritage 2000) and Building in Context (English Heritage and CABE 2001).

We have developed techniques in townscape character assessment on behalf of the Countryside Agency, and are authors of the Townscape Character Assessment topic sheet (LP0006) that forms part of the 'Landscape Pack' developed as part of the Countryside Agency's internal Landscape training programme in 2006.

Our work at the Tower of London World Heritage Site was highly commended at the Landscape Institute Awards in 2006. The judges commented that the work is "A remarkable and very impressive development of technology which should be of application to other historic urban settings".

Our Urban Landscape Planning work has:

• Informed decisions at public inquiry
• Informed siting and design principles for built development
• Formed the basis of more detailed design briefs which have been subsequently adopted as supplementary planning documents; and
• Contributed to policy development.