A couple of hopeful paragraphs from Julian Glover's review of UK landscapes for the Government.
"Our central proposal is to bring National Parks and AONBs together as part of one family of national landscapes, served by a shared National Landscapes Service (NLS) which will give them a bigger voice, bigger ambition and a new way of working to meet new challenges.
We also think what are now AONBs should be strengthened, with increased funding, governance
reform, new shared purposes with National Parks, and a greater voice on development. We think the current cumbersome title ‘AONB’ should be replaced. Our suggestion is that they should be called National Landscapes.
We would also like to see the encouragement of a wider range of non‑designated systems of landscape protection, which should be members of the national landscapes family and served by the NLS."
