Small breakout groups were prompted to discuss the following aspects of tranquillity.

Firstly, participants were asked to think about:

• What makes you feel tranquil – what are your top 5 positive factors?
• What detracts from tranquillity – what are your top 5 negative factors?
• Do you agree with the indicators we have presented?
• What datasets could we use?
• Are there indicators that are more important than others?
• How does distance factor in (buffer distances)?

Considerations:

• Availability of spatial data
• Data update and frequency

The following list highlights the range of responses to the question “what makes you feel tranquil?”:

• Natural landscape without man made structures
• Seeing artificial things from great distance , lack of movement
• Peace and quiet, absence of man made noise
• Presence of natural sounds
• Sense of space, good views
• Hearing bird song, insects

The following list highlights the range of responses to the question “What detracts from tranquillity?”:

• Loud man made noises, such as motorway, airplanes, construction sites
• External unexpected disturbance to tranquillity, likelihood of seeing and hearing other people
• Seeing major infrastructure
• Military aircraft

Then participants were asked to think about:

• What factors are different between All South and Vale and Urban?
• Are there any additional factors at play in one or the other?
• Could we use the same data but just change the distances to which they are relevant?
• Different datasets in All South and Vale/Urban?

The following list highlights the range of responses and comments made relating to the points above:

• Air quality/ pollution in urban areas. However this is potentially already included in other detracting indicators such as seeing and hearing roads
• Gardens and leafy parks in urban areas would feel tranquil because of being in the urban environment, whereas the same features in rural area would not really impact tranquillity
• The idea of perception and how people get used to noises, for instance getting used to hearing trains.
• Quieter streets and individual trees can make a difference in urban areas. Smaller changes might make a bigger difference in urban than in rural areas
• Small green corridors provide small sections of tranquillity
• Importance of greenspaces around urban areas

Back to top

Full list of indicators considered and stakeholder feedback

Further stakeholder feedback was received after the workshop via emails and online meetings and are detailed in Table ‎A-1 and Table ‎A-2. These helped deciding whether the proposed indicators were relevant in South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse District Councils and pointed out specific datasets that could be used to map the indicators. Note that P03 Hearing flowing/lapping water was discussed with stakeholders following the review of the pilot mapping and it was agreed that this indicator is not relevant to South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse Districts and should therefore be removed from the final analysis.

Table ‎A-1: List of positive indicators considered and decision to keep or not in tranquillity assessment

Positive factors	Stakeholder feedback	LUC answer	Included in pilot assessment	Included in final assessment
P01 – Naturalness of the land cover	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
P02 – Seeing streams, rivers and canals	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
P03 – Hearing flowing/lapping water	n/a	n/a	Yes	No
P04 – Seeing lakes	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
P05 – Seeing broadleaved woodland/ individual trees	Would the TPO data help with mapping urban trees?	TPO data won’t help mapping urban trees. LUC looked into using the Environment Agency ‘vegetation object model’ dataset to map urban trees, however there are gaps in the data over various sections of the urban areas so we could not use this data.	Yes	Yes
P06 – Seeing plantation/coniferous woodland	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
P07 – Seeing the stars at night	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
P08 – Hearing nature	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
P09 – Seeing wide open spaces (pilot mapping indicator name)	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes – renamed to Seeing elevated areas
P10 – Seeing natural designations	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
P11 – Seeing time depth	Some landscapes feel ancient too and like they have not changed for centuries, such as White Horse Hill at Uffington, Wayland Smithy, the Wittenham Clumps (but perhaps these are captured anyway in the heritage mapping). Also we see time depth when we see old veteran trees or walk in ancient woodland perhaps.	White Horse Hill, Wayland Smithy, Witthenham Clumps and Ancient woodland are all included in natural designation datasets (P10).	Yes	Yes

Table ‎A-2: List of negative indicators considered and decision to keep or not in tranquillity assessment

Negative factors	Stakeholder feedback	LUC answer	Included in pilot assessment	Included in final assessment
N01 – Seeing settlements	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
N02 – Seeing villages and scattered houses	Villages and scattered houses should be differentiated from settlements as these are often beautiful and tranquil in natural setting.	Based on the feedback this indicator was not included in the assessment.	No	No
N03 – Seeing light pollution	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
N04 – Seeing large non-natural infrastructure	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
N05 – Seeing major roads	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
N06 – Hearing major roads	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
N07 – Seeing minor roads	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
N08 – Hearing minor roads	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
N09 – Seeing railways	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
N10 – Hearing major railways	n/a	n/a	Yes	Yes
N11 – Hearing minor railways	The heritage railways such as the Bunk Line between Cholsey and Wallingford and the Chinnor to Princes Risborough railway can be a positive experience of noise (e.g. the toot of a steam train)	Based on the feedback this indicator was not included in the assessment.	No	No
N12 – Hearing airport noise	This is not that relevant as there are no large commercial airports in either district.	Based on the feedback this indicator was not included in the assessment.	No	No
N13 – Seeing and/or hearing low flying airplane	This indicator is relevant in South and Vale. The biggest one would be RAF Benson with a lot of low flying helicopters. Also include the flightpaths of RAF Brize Norton and Heathrow airport. Chalgrove airfield is no longer operated by MOD and it is used by a company to test ejector seats, which is noisy when testing. Abingdon airfield is still used for occasional training by the RAF as well as for an air show every year in May.	RAF Benson, Heathrow and RAF Brize Norton flight paths were used in this indicator.	Yes	Yes
N14 – Seeing military training	This indicator is more about aircraft movement, so will be covered in ‘seeing and /or hearing low flying airplane’.	n/a	n/a	n/a
n/a	Dalton Barracks is a live MOD base with regular army vehicles coming out of barracks. However when training takes place it cannot be seen from the road.	This indicator will not be added to the analysis because the points from the stakeholder feedback are covered in N13.	No	No
N15 – Seeing quarries/ mines	There are no mines in either district. In terms of quarries, all of the ones in the study area are with restoration conditions and thus are excluded from ‘previously developed land’ in the NPPF. The timescale of a working quarry is also short (around 5 years) and then the land has restoration potential. Note that old quarries in South and Vale are some of the most tranquil areas.	Based on the feedback this indicator was not included in the assessment.	No	No
N16 – Hearing non-natural sounds	There is one wind farm of five wind turbines at West Mill Farm, Watchfield.	n/a	Yes	Yes
N17 – Seeing many people	Popular towns and rural spots for tourism are not over-run with visitors to the extent it impacts on tranquillity.	Based on the feedback this indicator was not included in the assessment.	No	No