3.1. What is the Plan for?

This plan is for guiding and inspiring action that will bring us closer to achieving the vision. It meets the statutory requirement on local authorities to produce a Management Plan but goes beyond that requirement by:

Bringing together partners to develop a vision and target action for this protected landscape.
Promoting collaboration in action for best results.
Helping to prioritise public investment, for example agri-environment or rural development grant.
Providing a framework for private investment, for example commercial or philanthropic.
Providing a policy framework within which the National Landscape Partnership can bring partners together to design, resource and implement programmes of action.

The plan places a focus on how the primary purpose of conserving and enhancing natural beauty will be delivered; social and economic issues are covered in terms of their relationship to that primary purpose.

3.2. Who is the Plan for?

The National Landscape Management Plan is just that – a plan for the National Landscape area. It provides a framework that can help guide all activities that might affect the National Landscape. Its audiences include:

National Landscape Partnership organisations – these organisations will have a key role in delivering and championing the Management Plan.
Relevant authorities – all public bodies, statutory undertakers and persons holding public office have a duty to seek to further the purpose of the National Landscape; this Management Plan will guide them in fulfilling their statutory duties.
Landowners and managers – those who own and manage land in the National Landscape have a vital role to play; the plan aims to guide, support and attract resources for sensitive management of the National Landscape.
Local communities – everyone who lives and works in the National Landscape can play an active role in caring for it; the plan identifies some of the priorities for action and ways to get involved.

3.3. How does it relate to other plans, strategies and processes?

This plan should be used to guide and inform all other plans and activities developed by public bodies and statutory undertakers that may affect the National Landscape, in line with their duty to seek to further the purpose of the designation. It should also be used for other people and organisations in and around the National Landscape so that they may contribute to the conservation and enhancement of the National Landscape.

This plan will help promote and support local delivery of the Environment Improvement Plan and Local Nature Recovery Strategy, including a range of biodiversity, water quality and landscape initiatives.
Public investment strategies: it can guide the targeting and prioritising of land management grants and other rural industry grants or loans.
Local & spatial plans: it provides part of the evidence base for the Dorset Local Plan (and those in neighbouring counties) for housing and employment land, transport, waste and minerals and rights of way.
Marine plans: provides part of the evidence base for the Marine Plan (South).
Development management: local planning authorities and the Marine Management Organisation have a statutory duty to seek to further the purpose of the National Landscape when making planning decisions. In making these decisions the relevant authority should seek the advice of Natural England, the statutory agency responsible for National Landscapes. In addition, this Management Plan is a material consideration in the planning process. Planning authorities seek advice from the National Landscape Team under the Dorset National Landscape planning protocol.
Health and wellbeing plans: it can guide the implementation of the nature-based preventative health measures in the NHS Change programme.
Catchment plans: it provides part of the evidence base for the partnership catchment management plans within the National Landscape (currently the Poole Harbour and Stour Catchments Plans). It also influences River Basin Management Plans and water company investment plans.
Community planning: it can help inform neighbourhood and parish plans and community strategies.
The Dorset & East Devon World Heritage Site Management Plan: this plan outlines the statutory landscape protections for the site and its setting in the collective interests of all humanity.
Cultural strategies such as Arts Council England’s Let’s Create strategy and the Dorset Cultural Strategy: it can add context and local distinctiveness to enhance implementation.

3.4. What have previous plans helped to achieve?

Earlier editions of the plan have underpinned the work of the Dorset National Landscape Partnership and a wide range of contributors. Over the period 2019-2025, the last management plan helped attract over £10M investment through the National Landscape Partnership alone for conservation, access, understanding and celebration activities. It also helped guide National Grid’s investment of over £100M to underground the high voltage electricity lines between Winterbourne Abbas and Corton, influenced considerably further millions invested through agri-environment schemes. The following examples highlight the ways in which the National Landscape Partnership operate:

Development management and planning gain: the policies and detail within the plan has helped limit harmful development within the National Landscape and enabled a framework for mitigation and compensation where residual significant impacts remain at the approval of certain proposals. During the plan period the £1.7M Wytch Farm Landscape Enhancement Fund was fully committed to projects enhancing landscape character and non-car access; further compensatory funds were secured for impacts around Swanworth Quarry and two large solar developments outside the National Landscape near Owermoigne.
The Wild Purbeck Partnership continued after the initial project delivery role, convening partners to plan and coordinate better management for nature. Arising from this partnership in 2020 was the country’s first ‘super’ National Nature Reserve, the Purbeck Heaths of 3,331 hectares under the ownership of seven different landowners, encompassing one of lowland England’s wildest landscapes. A National Landscape-led bid for Green Recovery Challenge Funds enabled the development of the Wilder Grazing Unit, an unfenced area of 1370 hectares in which cattle, ponies, pigs and wild deer graze together.
In West Dorset, the National Landscape team convenes partners to deliver water quality enhancements in the West Dorset Rivers and Coastal Streams catchment, pioneering a community-led approach. The partnership was instrumental in securing Environment Agency funding for a programme of Natural Flood Management implementation and monitoring and working with West Dorset Wilding and others to coordinate efforts of citizen scientists.
Supported by the Community Lottery programme, Stepping into Nature continued into a second 3-year programme providing nature connectedness for older people, those living with dementia and their carers. The partnership included many landowning environmental organisations who increased their engagement and provision for older people, and was part of a wider collaboration on health with the Dorset Local Nature Partnership. It has now evolved into Nature Buddies, developing a volunteer base to assist people with long-term health conditions to experience greater connection to their local environments.
The Dorset National Landscape team also led the FLAVOURS project partnership delivering a programme of landscape and food-based experiences for minority ethnic and refugee groups, building relationships and informing a joint ambition for co-creating further similar activities.
The Farming in Protected Landscapes (FIPL) programme was co-designed with government, in recognition of Protected Landscapes organisations’ role as trusted honest brokers. In Dorset, over the programme’s first 4 years to March 2025 nearly £2.7M was redistributed achieving outcomes for people, nature, climate and place, cementing the National Landscape team’s role in securing good results by enabling farmer-led innovation. The programme has reached around a quarter of the landscape’s farm businesses over roughly a quarter of the area.
Alongside FIPL, government also provided funding of £250,374 via the Access for All programme (3 years to March 2025), enabling a broader range of people to access the landscape through infrastructure improvements.
While there are several examples of national collaborative work through the National Landscapes Association, Nature Calling is an excellent recent example. Arts Council England funds were secured nationally, which enabled 8 hub landscapes (of which Dorset National Landscape was one) to undertake two creative commissions to engage with underserved communities and share the learning and expertise with neighbouring protected landscapes. Dorset National Landscape engaged producers Activate Performing Arts and Louisa Adjoa Parker who created the written piece This Land, reflecting on landscape and belonging after undertaking a series of interviews. Arts collective Radical Ritual were also engaged to produce the artwork Consequences – a giant game of consequences, inspired by the Cerne Abbas Giant, co-designing it with 200 people from the Yeovil area in the process.
In addition, many community projects delivering aspects of the plan were encouraged and supported through the provision of small grants. Enabling community-led creativity in plan delivery is an important principle.

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