Food, Farming and Countryside Commission
Date: 10th May
Time: 5 – 6.30pm
Location: Online, please sign up using this link: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZEpc-ygqzwvE9IF05xdvRUk6xmfOcoReuA5
The Food, Farming and Countryside commission is 'touring' the countryside to gather views about land in Cambs and Peterborough:
Listening Tour: Your Views on Land in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
We ask a lot of land. We need it to grow food, restore biodiversity and nature, decarbonise the
economy and adapt to climate change – while also providing space for new homes, access to nature
for leisure and wellbeing and the infrastructure for business, energy and transport. In England, there
is currently no coordinated way of balancing all of these pressures.
Planners are often faced with agreeing the ‘least-worst’ development proposals. Local people have
little say when their valued open countryside, green spaces, or even allotments are lost to other
uses. We want to test ideas for a more strategic and effective approach that will support action to
deliver net zero, nature recovery, clean air and water, economic development, and food production.
A land use framework will also help individual landowners and farmers make long term plans as they
face a raft of new support mechanisms; to help assess what their land is best used for in the context
of the wider landscape.
We want to hear from people about the places where they live and work and what they value most
there. We want to hear people’s hopes, fears and aspirations for their local environment and what
they would like to improve. We’re interested in towns, villages, farms, landscapes and wildlife, food,
roads, rivers, transport, heritage and employment. What changes are coming and how can they best
be addressed? How can local people be involved in defining what Cambridgeshire is like in 20 years’
time?
We hope the meeting will be interesting and lively, and that you share your views. We will include a
short introduction to the topic about how places have been changing over time and the competing
pressures on land to open up the discussion.
These meetings will form part of a wider “tour” gathering views right across Cambridgeshire. They
will all contribute to a Land Use Framework being developed by people and organisations right across
Cambridgeshire. For more information: https://ffcc.co.uk/land-use-framework