BALI feeds into land use consultation

BALI has championed the role of landscaping and its membership in response to a government consultation on land use in England.

The consultation, which runs until 25 April, is seeking views on a vision for future land use and how it will be delivered.

These ideas will inform the development of a Land Use Framework, which will set out the principles and levers for policy as well as further data and analysis needs.

Land use is changing

The consultation includes an analysis of how land use will have to change over time in order to deliver various outcomes on the environment, urban development, and food production.

The analysis suggests that around 19% of current agricultural land use will have to be modified, with roughly 9% taken out of production altogether.

Such a shift in land use may present opportunities for BALI members to design, build, and maintain new landscapes but supportive business policy would be needed.

We know many members struggle to recruit people with the right skills, while the autumn budget and Employment Rights Bill may bring fresh challenges.

This is a message BALI has delivered to officials through stakeholder workshops alongside calls for better green infrastructure and more integrated pest management in the amenity sector.

Links to other work

Questions around land use change and the role of our members in the process are nothing new to the policy team at BALI.

We have previously engaged members and government on related policies around biodiversity net gain and the grey belt.

And we will continue to work on what are strategically important issues as well as the day-to-day challenges faced by members such as recruitment and compliance.