Land Use Decision Making in the UK & Ireland: What can countries learn from each other for a better future?

In March 2024, the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission (a member of the LUNZ Hub Consortium) convened a high-level Roundtable of 40 representatives from various organisations working on land use from across the four Nations of the UK plus the Republic of Ireland.

The Roundtable sought to explore different approaches to governance and policy design in land use policy across the UK and Ireland, and identify positive outcomes. Each country chose their ‘gift’ policy that they would want other countries to emulate, and how this worked in their country. Four themes emerged as critical to successful land use decision making: integrations (across all sectors that use land); governance(rights and responsibilities of landowners and communities); levers of change (particularly in planning policy); and process (having a clearly defined process of decision making that was transparent and accountable). It was clear that the very different land use pressures and socio-political contexts across the different countries had led to very different policy landscapes: however, participants agreed that there was great opportunity to learn from each other.