Parish Locality Map

The Lanchester Locality Map has developed from the Parish Plan in July 2005, which recognised a need to provide a framework for actions to safeguard farming, the environment and wildlife. It complements both the Parish Plan and the Lanchester Village Design Statement, and recognises the need to shape the future of the countryside within the whole Parish and its relationship to and with the village. It has been prepared by a group of local people under the chairmanship of Keith Harrison, Parish Councillor and farmer. Other farmers have been involved in the group as well as representatives of Lanchester Wildlife Group and members of Lanchester Partnership.

The Locality Map provides a concise approach to the direction of changes of the wider countryside and rural communities of the Parish and provides an agenda of activity to be pursued by the Parish Council together with the community of the parish in the coming years.
By recognising that the Parish’s countryside is a ‘living landscape’ and the workplace for the land-based economy, future management must balance a wide variety of needs and influences and acknowledge that it is the farming and landowning community that will be asked to implement management on behalf of our wider society.

The Locality Map therefore draws together a number of themes:

  • Encouraging and increasing sustainability
  • Accepting that landscapes are dynamic
  • Recognising that farmland appearance alters with changes to government policy, schemes and farming practices
  • Providing a resource for tourism and leisure
  • Retaining Lanchester’s distinctiveness
  • Encouraging planning policies to match the vision for the future of the Parish, with any development to fit within the existing environment
  • Seeking a fit for all stakeholders, including farmers, landowners, parish residents (involving those in rural areas who are not engaged in agriculture), those who come to the Parish to work, tourists and visitors, local businesses, local authorities, organisations, partnerships and those managing wildlife communities and habitats
  • Endeavouring to deliver the promises in relevant local authority Local Development Documents when these become availableIn 2010 The Parish Council secured funding from LEADER and The Heritage Lottery Fund and together with monies from the Parish Council have developed an 18 month project to begin to implement the Actions highlighted in the Locality Map.  For more information about the Locality Map Project click here