Local Context – Countryside Character
What is Countryside Character?
Every landscape has its own distinct and recognisable characteristics, and these patterns of local character have been mapped at a national scale to produce the 159 Joint Character Areas (JCAs), each resulting from a combination of factors such as land cover, geology, soils, topography and settlement and field patterns (www.countryside.gov.uk/lar/landscape). They are being increasingly used as the framework for the delivery of advice and the targeting of resources for many aspects of the rural environment, most notably through the Agri-Environment Schemes, and this has been extended by local authorities to cover Landscape Character Assessments at a finer scale. These Joint Character Areas are also being deployed as the spatial framework for reporting change in the countryside, in the Countryside Quality Counts project (see www.cqc.org.uk).
The JCA map below is for testing only and not a fully working application. When built, the user will be able to zoom, move and directly access the JCA of interest with a click. See Google Maps for reference
Click anywhere on the map to simulate zooming into a JCA of interest (the map will focus into JCA 130: Hampshire Downs)
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Regional Character Summaries
©2007 English Heritage