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Planning: EC Law

Volume 457: debated on Monday 5 March 2007

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what steps she has taken to ensure that planning authorities take into consideration the terms of the convention on landscape agreed by the Council of Europe in 2000. (124997)

The Government believe that the UK is already fulfilling the requirements of the convention. National planning policies, including planning policy statement 1, “Delivering Sustainable Development”, and PPS 7, “Sustainable Development in Rural Areas” recognise the need to provide appropriate protection and enhancement of rural and urban landscapes in England, in line with the principal aims of the European landscape convention. Planning authorities are required to have regard to these national policies when preparing their development plans and these policies may be material to the consideration of planning applications.