A series of consultation activities were undertaken as described below.

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Consultation Hub

An online ‘Consultation Hub’ was set up to allow members of the public to leave comments on valued landscape qualities (“what is valued and why?”) and on landscape change (“what is changing and why?”). The consultation ran from 17th August to 2nd October 2023.

A map-based approach allowed participants to ‘pin’ comments to a specific map location, or to make more general comments. The image below shows example comments added to the interactive map.

Online consultation Hub

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Email consultation

Emails were sent to key stakeholders, seeking their thoughts/opinions on the draft classification (Landscape Character Types and Landscape Character Areas), on valued landscape characteristics/features and on landscape change issues. Key stakeholders included parish and district councillors, representatives of neighbouring planning authorities and Oxfordshire County Council, the Chilterns and North Wessex Downs National Landscapes, national bodies such as Natural England, Historic England and the Environment Agency, and various special interest and local community groups.

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Interactive workshops

Three online workshops were held (on the 31st of August and the 11th and 14th of September 2023), with a follow-on council-run internal workshop with other councillors (held on the 21st of September 2023). Invitees included district councillors, representatives of neighbouring planning authorities and Oxfordshire County Council, the Chilterns and North Wessex Downs National Landscapes, national bodies such as Natural England, Historic England and the Environment Agency, and various special interest and local community groups.

The online workshops used an ‘interactive whiteboard’ that allowed participants to add comments to maps and charts, and view the comments of others, in a series of exercises. Comments and input were sought around the following exercises:

• Exercise 1: proposed Landscape Character Types and Landscape Character Areas;
• Exercise 2: What do you think is important and what do you value about your local landscape?; and
• Exercise 3: What do you think are potential areas of change or pressure in the landscape?

The two images below show example comments added to the interactive whiteboard at one of the workshops.

Interactive whiteboard comments

Interactive whiteboard comments on map