A Land Use Framework edges closer – what you need to know about the Land Use Consultation
On behalf of rural landowners, the CLA's Susan Twining explains what a Land Use Framework is and summarises the key take aways from the government’s latest Land Use Consultation
Defra published a Land Use Consultation for England on 31 January 2025. This is not the long-awaited Land Use Framework itself but a 12-week public consultation and ‘national conversation’ about land use. The responses will feed into the final development and publication of a Land Use Framework in the summer.
The driver for a Land Use Framework is the need for better spatial planning to help manage all the demands on land – agriculture, housing, energy, infrastructure, nature recovery, and climate action – to unlock growth, delivery on environmental commitments and ensure food security. It is not intended to be prescriptive or replace the planning system.
The Land Use Framework, and crucially, how it is deployed at national, regional and local level, is likely to have an impact on all members to some degree. This makes the consultation an important juncture to represent members interests to shape its design.
How you can get involved
The CLA has been actively engaged with the discussions on a Land Use Framework with Defra, members and other stakeholders for some time (over five years). The CLA Policy Briefing on the Land Use Framework was submitted to Defra in April 2023 following discussions at national committees. The key points are:
- The CLA is supportive of a strategic Land Use Framework that tests the feasibility of government policies and monitors the impacts.
- We have concerns about how it might be deployed at regional and local level, and wish to see assurances that it will not become prescriptive, bureaucratic or result in zoning that could stifle economic and environmental development and innovation.
- It should be linked, but not part of, the planning system.
- Land use change can happen with the right inspiration, information and tools, and a supportive policy and economic environment, but it should always be voluntary.
- Land managers know their land best, and even high quality data needs ground-truthing at the field level when needed for accuracy.
We are currently taking a discussion paper round CLA branch committees and national committees to gather views and information to inform our response. If you would like to get involved but are not on a committee, please get in touch with susan.twining@cla.org.uk by 29 March 2025.
In addition there will be a number of regional workshops run by Defra and others as part of the consultation, so look out for those and get involved.
The Land Use Consultation - headlines
The publication of the consultation and the Analytical Annex is a welcome opportunity to ensure that landowner and manager perspective is represented. It is worth a read, although it’s not everybody’s ideal way to spend time, so the CLA is here to do it for you. Below are the headlines:
Overview
The consultation is wide reaching and, rightly, links into other Defra plans and strategies that have links to land use and those in other departments. In particular, it refers to the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) and Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG). (summary in Figure 1).
There is a strong emphasis on food security and farming throughout the document which is a welcome recognition that has been missing in the past. This includes references to protecting the best agricultural land with the greatest long-term potential for food production. The details of what this will mean is examined other than to note that this may mean more of the environmental land will need to go on less productive land.
Land use change projections
There is the introduction of five categories of land use change for nature delivery and a summary of the land use change expected by 2050. This needs further digesting. Essentially the categories graduate from land management changes that improve the environment but don’t change land use (Category 1), through edge/corner of field activities (Category 2) and more ambitious agri-environmental type activities (Categories 3.1 and 3.2), to complete change away from agriculture land to nature (Category 5). The figures are based on the modelling in the Analytical Annex and provide some sense of the scale of change required. (Table 1 below for details).
- Note that the land use change categories are different to the Agricultural Land Classification (ALC) that is used in planning policy, and mentioned later in the consultation, as something that is in need of review.
Table 1: Categories of land management and land use change (Defra data)
| Category | Description | Change by 2050 |
|---|---|---|
| Category 1 | Land management changes such as reduced fertilisers and pesticides | Not in scope |
| Category 2 | Small changes maintaining the same agricultural land use e.g. field margins and buffer strips – multifunctional | 1% of agricultural land 50 kha by 2050 |
| Category 3.1 | Changes in agricultural land use - for food and climate – mainly incorporating trees into farming systems – multifunctional | 4% of agricultural land 370 kha by 2050 |
| Category 3.2 | Change in agricultural land use – for environment and climate – creation and restoration of habitats and land, short rotation coppice, low intensity farming – multifunctional | 5% of agricultural land 430 kha by 2050 |
| Category 4 | Change away from agricultural land to environment and climate use – peatland restoration, tree planting etc – primarily environmental | 9% of agricultural land 760 kha by 2050 |
The Analytical Annex provides a useful collection of information on targets across government and the modelling of the land use transition over time if they are to be met (Figure 2). The headline figures include a shift from agricultural land to housing of 1.1% by 2050, and 0.2% for infrastructure. The biggest land use change is to nature with a total of 17% of agricultural land changed by 2050, although only 9% will be purely for nature and climate with no farming.
- The scale and type of change are similar to those put forward by Henry Dimbleby in the Food Strategy document in 2021.
The Analytical Annex clearly sets out the data sources including social, economic and cultural drivers of land use change to inform assumptions on impact of various policies. It is always easy to take issue with complex models, but the point with this one is that it provides a starting point for discussions about the scale of change and the policy levers (regulation, incentives and other enablers) needed.
The principles
The principles for a Land Use Framework are difficult to argue with – co-design; multifunctional land for multiple benefits; playing to the strengths of the land; decisions fit of the long-term; and, responsive by design. However as with all principles, there is a need to really think through how their use might play out at a national, regional and local level to test any unintended and undesirable consequences.
Making the best use of land
One of the most interesting parts of the consultation should have been the drivers for change and the incentives that could be deployed. However, much of the detailed thinking on this is passed on to other strands of Defra work including the Farming Roadmap, the Food Strategy, private sector funding for nature, the Nature Restoration Fund in the planning reforms, 30by30 delivery, responsible access and community ownership. The CLA is engaged separately in all of these areas. Having said that, one of the areas that is mentioned several times is about spatial targeting of funding and how that can be delivered, which is a discussion that is live in the development of the Environmental Land Management (ELM) schemes.
An ongoing problem with the UK Government is the lack of cross-departmental working, but there is certainly an intent that the Land Use Framework galvanises joined up thinking, particularly on data consistency and sharing. There are also emerging discussions around local devolution that will need to ensure joined up thinking between national, regional and local. This is coming together in more spatial plans – Spatial Development Strategies for local plans; Strategic Spatial Energy Plans, and similar for water management, alongside Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
Accessible and high-quality data that can be shared and used at different scales is a common call for many people involved in land management, although this is usually accompanied by some nervousness about data ownership, sharing and misuse. Providing consistent and high-quality data is an underpinning purpose of the Land Use Framework. This includes looking at using artificial intelligence to do more data integration, development of new tools to help land managers and others to make decisions.
Workforce resources and skills might not seem immediately relevant to a Land Use Framework, but it has been identified by the government as a key barrier to land use change. This isn’t just about farming more sustainably, but improving knowhow of environmental management, and sharing best practice. There is a separate group working on how to address this.
Governance
There is an important section at the end related to governance and how to ensure the cross-government collaboration on data and processes. There was a proposal to have a Land Use Commission, but the CLA view is that Defra should take the lead on oversight, and provide cross-departmental strategic analysis and guidance.
So, after all that, what is a Land Use Framework?
Good question. The consultation document states that the Land Use Framework will include:
- A set of principles that the government will apply to policy with land use implications – importantly, this will be across government departments, not just Defra.
- A description of how policy levers (regulation, incentives and enablers) will develop and adapt to support land use change.
- A release of land use data and analysis to support public and private sector innovation and spatial decision-making; and development of tools to support land managers in practice.
But, the consultation response and workshops will be an important opportunity to influence this. It’s a chance to think beyond the framework to how it will be deployed locally and influence land use change in the short and long term.
