Priority 1: Consolidate and recommit to current funding of £35 million per year for National Landscapes Partnerships, maintaining the effectiveness of ongoing programmes and achieving efficiency through streamlining Defra’s funding support. National Landscapes are a proven mechanism to quickly deliver priority outcomes. Part of this £35 million should come from embedding land management advice, guidance and delivery as an essential function of National Landscape teams by maintaining the current funding level (£20.2 million) of the successful, innovative, Farming in Protected Landscapes (FiPL) programme; a proven, cost-effective way to achieve landscape conservation and enhancement.

Priority 2: A prudent additional investment of £11 million per year to rebuild National Landscapes’ capacity, shore up effective functioning and position them to help deliver government targets, take advantage of immediate opportunities and lever in new external resources including private finance, which will greatly multiply government investment.

Priority 3: Strongly implement the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act’s duty to ‘seek to further the purposes’, through secondary legislation, government guidance and sector-specific advice. Use the LURA duty as a means to align decision making and investment, achieving greater momentum and coherence for national, legally binding objectives and targets, and strengthen the powers associated with National Landscapes to deliver for the nation.

We are looking forward to working with the new Defra Ministerial team to increase the pace and scale of delivery.