Views and Visions of Land Use in the United Kingdom

As part of a national study aimed at surveying the land use and landscape of the United Kingdom, 1287 surveyors recorded their views and visions of one-kilometre grid squares in which they conducted fieldwork. This study, which took place in 1996, has links to previous national land-use surveys by L. Dudley Stamp (1950) and Alice Coleman (1976, 1977). Of the total sample, 1037 reports are from the observations of school children. Their views relate to six key questions which have been analysed using qualitative research techniques to identify categories of shared responses. Reported in frequency counts, the results highlight a degree of communality in the perceptions of the majority of young people and adults involved. They show their hopes and dreams for a cleaner and varied landscape in the future with more green space, greater provision for well-planned low density housing, and recreation facilities. At the same time their expressed concerns for the management of the environment, housing development, green space provision, recreation and leisure activities indicate a disquiet about the future. This apparent pessimism is most notable in the views for urban locations. For rural locations there is a higher expectation that things will remain more-or-less the same in 20 years time.