Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
The Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Management Plan 2011 - 2016
Chairman's Introduction
By Peter Mansfield
Chair, Cornwall AONB Partnership
The Cornwall AONB landscape comprises over 25%
of Cornwall – its finest landscapes, first designated
as of national importance in 1959. Yet it was only in
2002 that the Cornwall AONB Partnership first came
together, triggered by 75% funding made available
from Central Government to provide resources to
begin to close the gap between the standards of care
for the equally important National Park and AONB
landscapes of Britain.
The Partnership’s first task was to produce a single
Management Plan for the AONB landscape to fulfill
the seven local authorities’ legal obligation to do so.
The plan was approved in 2004 with the key theme
that: “This distinctive Cornish landscape faces many
challenges which need to be met in ways which
future generations will judge to have been far-sighted
and unselfish of our generation… in other words
promoting only genuinely sustainable development.”
That underlying theme carries through to this
second plan as does the key challenge to provide
more detailed focus on the 12 distinctive coastal
and moorland areas: “Effective involvement of local
communities in the shaping of their local landscapes
is crucial.”
That ambition is addressed in this new plan by
individual chapters for each of the 12 areas, founded
on extensive community consultations prior to writing
the Plan and widespread public consultation on
the draft.
How the land use planning system in Cornwall
values our finest landscapes in practice is the key to
whether this greatest of assets keeps its quality in
the long term. Supporting the effective working of the
planning system is the Partnership’s greatest single
priority, our best value contribution, given how thinly
stretched we are by the size of this designated area
compared with more compact AONB landscapes.
This second Management Plan has been created
in a much changed – and still rapidly changing
– world. Locally, we now have a single authority,
Cornwall Council; it is significant that this Plan
has an endorsing Foreword by Cabinet Member
Julian German CC who lives within the AONB and
understands the challenges very well; he sits on
the Partnership with three colleagues from across
Cornwall – all of whom who are involved with the
planning process.
Cornwall is universally regarded as a world class
visitor destination offering a beguiling combination
of distinctive experiences, largely founded on
the AONB landscape but benefiting the whole
community, not least in the provision of 40,000 jobs
– 25% of Cornwall’s total.
Times of financial austerity can sometimes encourage
short term expediency in pursuit of instant results;
rarely do these prove sustainable in any sense and
generally they come to be regretted....The challenge
is surely for those who most determine what happens
to the face of Cornwall – politicians, policy makers and
resource owners – to keep a clear understanding of
what makes Cornwall special, and a vision for long
term prosperity built on this, resisting the inevitable
‘anywhere’ quick fix offers and only playing to
Cornwall’s timeless strengths and opportunities.
For the Partnership, reduced resources underlines the
crucial importance of full blooded partnership working –
surely in tune with the ‘Big Society’ concept now seen
as the way forward for managing in these harder times.
I strongly believe this Plan provides a robust and well
thought-out route map to achieve the Plan’s 20 year
Vision, navigating the challenges and opportunities
of the next 5 years for this inspiring landscape which
mean so much to all who live here – and to our
millions of enthusiastic visitors.