PPG 7 indicates that "The priority now is to find new ways of enriching the quality of the whole of the countryside whilst accommodating appropriate development, in order to complement the protection which designations offer". Landscape Character Assessment has a major role to play in this process. Neither the Countryside Agency nor SNH currently promote approaches based on character as an alternative to local landscape or countryside designations. Rather it is seen as complementary. It can be used both within such designated areas and outside them, to inform individual planning and management decisions, and to help identify the conditions for development and change.

In recent years, nevertheless, and partly in response to PPG 7 in England and NPPG 14 in Scotland, the balance has begun to shift away from policies for locally designated areas towards an emphasis on maintaining and enhancing the distinctive character everywhere. National landscape designations will undoubtedly still continue to be the focus for development plan policies but, in future, policies based on landscape character are likely to emerge alongside those based on local designations, in regional, structure and local plans. Where local designations continue to be used it is likely that there will be growing emphasis on the role of Landscape Character Assessment in defining and justifying these areas, in order to meet the requirement for "formal assessment of the qualities of the countryside" [55].

If local designations are to be supplemented by, and in England gradually give way to, an approach based on character, ways must be found of linking landscape policies to landscape character. The most straightforward approach is a policy that simply requires that development is in keeping with the character of the landscape and maintains its distinctiveness, as in the example of the Ayrshire Structure Plan policy (Box 8.2). Such a policy must be accompanied by some form of character map, with descriptions of the landscape types and areas embraced by the plan, and guidance on the implications of these for development. In Scotland, for example, Ayrshire has a Joint Structure Plan Committee that has pursued a character-based approach. Here a map of eight simplified 'regional character areas' is included in the Structure Plan, amalgamating the original 26 landscape types identified in the Council's area-wide Landscape Character Assessment. In England, the Forest of Dean District-wide Local Plan included descriptions of landscape types identified in the Landscape Character Assessment of the District in the supporting text of the plan, to be read in conjunction with the policy on landscape character.

An alternative approach is that the Landscape Character Assessment document itself may be adopted as supplementary planning guidance, in which case the inclusion in the assessment of carefully thought out guidelines dealing with the role of settlement and built development in the landscape will then provide supporting information to assist in development control.