SCOTTISH EXECUTIVE

design and management

Cost Effective Landscape:

Learning from Nature

At the heart of the TRBAP is the Scottish Executive landscape design and management policy: Cost Effective Landscape: Learning from Nature (CEL:LfN).

CEL:LfN is a novel procedure which will make real and practical improvements in the sustainability of trunk road landscape design and management. The policy requires a distinctive and questioning approach to every task, encouraging the wise and imaginative use of resources and an appreciation of their environmental impacts. The aims of the policy include improvements in biodiversity, landscape character and value for money. The driving force behind the policy is the efficiency, power and beauty of nature.

The policy is having an immediate impact on trunk road landscape design and management. Landscape architects are required to spend time considering issues that hitherto would have been regarded as routine. Innovation and enterprise are replacing the repetitive 'standard solution' mentality. This positive and creative attitude is firing a renewed spirit of enthusiasm in the more experienced professionals and a more disciplined approach for the less experienced.

In addition, endorsements of the policy from other organisations have been received, including the former Chairman of SNH, Magnus Magnusson KBE, who stated at the Scottish Office 1998 seminar 'Natural Choices for Scotland': "The philosophy at the heart of this document is one which Scottish Natural Heritage endorses wholeheartedly".