Landscape Character Assessment (LCA)
Rowlands Castle Parish
A Landscape Character Statement prepared by the local Community lets local people decide what is important in their local landscape – both countryside and villages – and how they would like it to look in the future. It will ‘inform the planning process’ and may be adopted as an official document by our local planning authority. The latter is not clear at the moment, however, as a new National Planning Framework is being proposed by the coalition Government.
The East Hampshire LCA of 2006 stated that two landscape character types cover the Parish: ‘Chalk Downland Mosaic’ in the north, and ‘Wooded Claylands’ in the south. At a more local level, the Group is proposing seven sub-types: three in the north and four in the south. Roughly speaking, the northern ‘Downland’ is in the new South Downs National Park, while the ‘Claylands’ are outside, and subject to a different planning regime. Historic settlement information and biodiversity data has been gathered to further describe and compare the seven sub-types.