Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority (PCNPA) has appointed LUC to produce Trees and Woodland Planting Design Guidance.

The Guide will assist those proposing to plant trees or woodland and inform PCNPA’s response to planting proposals. It will be an important tool to help the PCNPA accommodate more trees and woodland to deliver multiple benefits for landscape, nature recovery and climate change resilience.

LUC is pioneering a new approach to assessing the sensitivity of the National Park’s varied landscapes to different scales of tree/woodland planting.

This project will use the spatial framework of the National Park’s Landscape Character Assessment to ensure a landscape-led approach. This builds upon the methodology LUC developed for a similar study in Bath and North East Somerset, completed earlier this year.

Woodland is an important resource that provides numerous valuable ecosystem services including:

• acting as a carbon sink
• providing an important habitat for a variety of species
• regulating air quality
• reducing flooding
• providing spaces for leisure and recreation
• contributing to cultural heritage and sense of place
• producing timber

The climate crisis has put an extra emphasis on the need for increased tree and woodland planting.

The Welsh Government has recently published a series of policies and guidance advocating woodland planting. PCNPA supports tree-planting and woodland regeneration in principle. However, the Authority is clear that this must not be detrimental to the distinctive and sensitive qualities of the nationally designated landscape.

Learn more about Landscape Planning & Assessment at LUC. Get in touch with Katrina Davies for further information.