Designing development in Cheshire East’s landscape

Don't do things that would harm the landscape or spoil the enjoyment of landscape users including local residents, employees, visitors and travellers. For example, consider a different site to avoid changing a site that has natural topography – undisturbed land, and don’t move soil, don’t cut down healthy trees, don’t remove hedges or remove or spoil other good landscape features such as historic field boundaries, streams or ponds. Think about sensory effects and make sure your development suits the amount of activity, smells or sounds already in the surrounding landscape, and suits typical land-uses for the neighbourhood.

Test different layouts, building types, sizes or shapes, minimise construction, minimise your development’s demands on the wider landscape, haulage – lorries for delivering materials, and effects on natural drainage and vegetation, check your suppliers’ sustainability and ethics particularly if you need stone from quarries. Think about how to conserve and reflect local vernacular, such as traditional buildings, structures or gateways.

For example, use good soils management and keep and reuse excavated soils on site by making deeper soils where possible such as in seeded or planted areas, incorporate and include a good sustainable drainage system (SuDS) into your landscaping scheme, grow plants on green roofs and living walls, consider additional off-site planting if appropriate, make unavoidable surfacing porous or permeable, and use appropriate recycled or renewable and local materials for construction.

For example by creating more habitats for nature such as more trees, hedges, ditches, streams and ponds, plant more vegetation including off-site vegetation within your land ownership where possible and appropriate, include better quality materials and features which improve your local landscape’s character.

Evaluate existing features - based on accurate surveys of your site’s topography, soils and vegetation, including: landform, field boundaries, soils, waterbodies – rivers, streams, ponds, ditches, and bogs - and trees, hedges, scrub – natural shrubby growth - grassland, and local features, such as traditional structures, patterns or a local style of objects.

Respect Local Landscape Designation Areas (PDF, 6.8MB) and related designations such as, Public rights of way, Sites of Biological Importance, Conservation areas, or Tree Preservation Orders.

Respect landscape character (PDF, 50.9MB), take account of other local character policy such as neighbourhood plans.

Use the landscape and visual effects hierarchy steps following steps 1 to 4.

Be technically viable practical, suitably engineered and safe, sensible and reasonable, taking particular care with land levels, contours, slopes, water, soils – especially where supporting other land or structures - and external structures such as walls or embankments

Have appropriate building density to provide a good balance between vegetated open space and built development, with reference to Cheshire East's Green Infrastructure Strategy.

Protect and reuse soils and show how you will follow DEFRA; code of practice for the sustainable use of soils on construction sites and show that, after your construction is complete, soils in seeded and planted areas will either be suitable reused site soils or moved soils which meet the British Standard for subsoil BS 8601:2013 and the British Standard for topsoil BS 3882:2015

Minimise hard surfaced areas and make any necessary hard surfacing porous or permeable, unless there are known contamination or ecological constraints, such as risk of pollution or changes to soil or water that would effect habitats

Choose reused, before recycled, before local new materials and ensure materials comply with relevant industry standards for their proposed use. If new natural stone is unavoidable, for example for building conservation reasons, ensure it has ethical and sustainable quarrying and supply-chains by providing a verification or accreditation certificate, such as the Ethical Trading Initiative. Tree and shrub protection such as spirals, tubes and mulch mats which should be biodegradable or photodegradable.

 Use Secured by Design principles for crime prevention

Provide good access routes for pedestrians, wheelchair users and cyclists around your site and linking your site with neighbouring communities and amenities

Retain vegetation where possible and sow or plant species suited to site conditions – for example, using indigenous native species and types of plant which grow naturally in the planting place’s conditions and location, following Natural England’s guidance for hedgerow planting and care (PDF, 650KB) and using the Tree Design Action group’s guidance for tree species selection; follow phytosanitary - plant health legislation for plants and plant material, including timber, woodchips and bark, to help protect against spread of plant pests and diseases.

Include landscaping management and maintenance with methods for building and maintaining external structures including waterbodies – such as ponds, canals, ditches, swales - and for sowing, planting, establishing and managing plants, including a programme for maintenance works and confirmation of who will be responsible for managing maintenance. This could be a simple  drawing with notes and a table for the programme.