HDA was commissioned by Basingstoke and Deane Council to prepare an updated Landscape Character Assessment for the Borough. The study looks at 20 landscape character areas, from the elevated chalklands in the south to the lowland mosaic in the north, and includes part of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty to the west, and the broad Loddon valley to the east.
The work will inform the update to the borough’s local plan, and forms the basis for site sensitivity work also being carried out by HDA.
The subsequent sensitivity study of assesses approximately 130 sites identified in the Council’s Strategic Housing and Economic Land Availability Assessment and employs a methodology derived from the recent Natural England guidance which replaced Topic Paper 6, assessing sensitivity as a combination of landscape and visual susceptibility, and value.
