The LUNZ Hub's Contribution to the Land Use Framework for England.

Since it was published for consultation in February, the proposed Land Use Framework for England has been a major focal point for the LUNZ Hub. The consultation invited views on how government should deliver a strategic, science-based vision for land use – with implications for agriculture, energy, biodiversity, net zero, planning, housing and beyond.

The following is a comprehensive breakdown of the ways in which the LUNZ Hub contributed to the Land Use Framework for England consultation process:

• Co-Principle Investigator of the LUNZ Hub Professor Heiko Balzter spoke at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee about how the Land Use Framework for England can deliver for Net Zero. His remarks underscored the scale and urgency of land use transformation, calling for co-creative engagement practices, spatial nuance, and data-driven delivery to achieve net zero goals.
• The Land Use Change TAG and the Early Careers Board submitted evidence directly to the Land Use Framework for England consultation via the Defra Citizen Space Consultation hub. The LUC TAG discussed and prepared a detailed response to questions from Defra about the Framework, its principles and its implementation.
• The England National Team have supported Defra by using LUNZ Hub contacts to identify stakeholders for the regional frameworks arranged by Defra as part of the consultation. This stakeholder mapping helped to identify key local stakeholders across agriculture and land management, environmental NGOs, infrastructure organisations and public sectors bodies to help recruit participants for these workshops during the consultation period. The England Team also reviewed the methodology for conducting the assessment of consultation responses for Defra.
• The Soil Health and Carbon Dynamic Topic Advisory Group (Soils TAG) held an expert Soils Data and the LUF Workshop to contribute information to the development of the Land Use Framework for England (LUF) and general understanding of soils’ place in it. The workshop heard from experts working with soil data, apps and toolkits, maps and mapping tools, and datasets. Discussions highlighted current gaps, challenges, and potential solutions regarding soil data collection, accessibility, and integration into land-use decision-making. The Soils TAG plans to invite these experts to discuss the topics which arose in this workshop in more depth with its wider community.
• This workshop followed on from a blog published by the Soils TAG prior to the announcement of the consultation in February entitled The Land Use Framework for England – How can it deliver for soils?. This blog highlighted the numerous ways that the LUF can deliver for soils and in turn, soils can deliver for the LUF, calling for soils to be centred throughout the LUF consultation process.
• The Enabling on the Ground Transitions TAG and the Social Justice & Equality, Diversity and Inclusion TAG co-hosted a webinar entitled England’s Land Use Framework Consultation and a Just Transition webinar. This webinar explored ways to ensure that the Land Use Framework supports a just transition—one that works for everyone, particularly those often overlooked in these discussions. The webinar recording and summary will be uploaded to the LUNZ Hub website shortly.
• The Digital Opportunities TAG hosted a webinar on Case Studies of Digital Technologies in Land-Use Net Zero. This webinar emphasised the importance of digital technologies in gathering evidence, informing policy, and supporting sustainable land management practices to achieve net-zero emissions targets.
• Hub members, including the Royal Agricultural University (RAU), and Tom Macmillan published the Land Use Innovation report . The report outlines why transforming land use is necessary, what tools can enable this, and the innovation infrastructure that would help develop these tools, thus setting out how the UK can support innovation to address these pressures on land.

The various contributions made by the LUNZ Hub to the LUF consultation cover multiple perspectives on land use change. These contributions are just the start of the process, however, and the Hub will continue to identify opportunity to feed into the Framework over the months ahead. Hub members will also explore ways to transfer learnings and insights about land use policy between all four devolved Nations.