Liss Outreach Day

Margaret Paren

Liss is revising its Village Design Statement. It was decided that a Community Landscape Character Assessment should be undertaken as a first step. The CPRE toolkit 'Unlocking the Landscape' was used as the basis for an outreach day but adapted to the circumstances.

Various organisations within the Parish were invited to take part. 50 villagers participated in a very successful day. Historians, geographers, naturalists, members of residents associations, farmers and others pooled their collective knowledge of the Parish. The Parish Council were strongly supportive and most members attended. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day and there were a number of comments from recent and long-standing villagers that they had seen parts of the Parish that they didn't even know existed.

The day was a great success and provided a lot of useful information for the Village Design Statement. It will be followed up with a workshop in October to consolidate the findings. The Liss experience shows that Community Landscape Assessments are a very valuable tool. But one note of caution, they take a lot of organising so the output needs to be seen to be useful!

Unlocking the Landscape - does your village want to take part?
The report on Liss shows that doing a Community Landscape Character Statement (CLCS) can be a valuable asset to many villages who are planning to revise or update their Village Design Statements or Parish Plans. If you would like to discuss this further, please contact Pam Mason or Abi Jarvis at the Branch Office, who both have had experience of setting up and running a CLCS in Hampshire.

November 2006