Last month I went for a walk in the Chiltern Hills, along the approximately 10 mile “Chess Valley” Route from Rickmansworth to Chesham. This part of England is of course, strong NIMBY territory, being the home of the recent Chesham and Amersham by-election that was fought largely on that very issue and in which the local electorate delivered a blow to the Government’s attempts at any sort of serious planning reform.
What I soon found out however, was that this NIMBY attitude not only covered housebuilding, but also extended to the general public realm, since significant portions of the route simply consisted of a narrow path wedged between high fencing on either side that has presumably been put up by local landowners. Not exactly providing the wide open countryside anticipated…
It should be said that this was not the case along the entire route, and there were some parts where it did live up to its designation as an “Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty” (AONB). On the other hand, large parts of the route were simply fairly standard farmland, that I imagine would be correctly designated as so if it were in a different part of the country.
This farmland is undoubtedly has benefits for local residents, but given the area’s proximity to London, keeping this area as farmland comes with an enormous opportunity cost. The district is served well by both the Chiltern Railways line and the Metropolitan line on the London Underground, meaning that these horses below graze only a 40 minute tube ride from the centre of a city with one of the most acute housing crises anywhere on the planet.
Now this is not an all out attack on AONBs, nor the designation of the Chiltern Hills as one such area. AONBs do play an important role in protecting certain natural landscapes that are scenic enough to be worthy of preservation, but not ‘wild’ enough to qualify for National Park status. However, spend any time in an area like the Chilterns and you do start to get the sense that the status is misused as a means to prevent any development, rather than as a way to ensure the proper maintenance of a valuable natural landscape for the enjoyment of the public.
The standard theory in favour of AONBs and other similar such designations is that they protect areas that either provide significant positive externalities and/or are public goods. Regardless of whether they are conceptualised as merit goods or public goods, the key motivation for their protection is that they provide significant benefits to the wider public, beyond those who happen to live in the area. These benefits can include utility gained from looking at the scenery, recreational space for visitors and even environmental benefits for non-visitors.
However, the emphasis on protection against development built into AONB legislation, rather than on management of the landscape and its promotion to the public, can result in the status being misused. Rather than being primarily viewed as a way to protect and promote an important landscape as a public or merit good, AONB status can often be simply viewed as a tool for residents to restrict local housing supply and hence increase prices. A quick glance through the Gov.uk guidance on AONBs gives a lot of detail on planning and development, but little on management or promotion of benefits to the wider public.
When visiting these areas, there are further indications that residents in AONBs are content to receive the benefits of the status in terms of restricted housing supply, without bearing many of the costs used to originally justify the status in the first place - both in terms of management and public access. It is quite difficult to defend an AONB as a public or merit good when significant barriers are erected to inhibit the area's non-excludability or to prevent the supposed positive externalities from actually accruing to third parties. For example, in the Chilterns, even areas that did have public access were often poorly signposted and inadequately maintained (see this “path" below).
The cost that AONBs bring in terms of reduced home building and other forms of development would likely be bearable if the status was used sparingly to protect landscapes of genuine national importance. However, large quantity of land that falls under this designation means that in some areas of the country, finding areas for development can start to become a significant challenge.
This challenge is undoubtedly greatest in the South East, where London is almost entirely ringed by AONBs (note that for many of these areas, the protections afforded by AONB status are in addition to their protections via being part of the greenbelt).
Now, it could just be that the South East of England is a region that is home to a particularly high number of unique landscapes that are in need of protection. However, it is notable that the only flank of the capital not given AONB status (Essex and the Thames Estuary), is also the one that has historically been the poorest. Moreover, the only other major English city to have a similar density of AONBs in its surroundings is relatively wealthy Bristol.
This suggests that AONB status can depend just as much on the organisation and influence of local residents as on the actual beauty of the area. With wealthier, homeowning residents having a greater incentive to mobilise against development, and more influence over the political process when they do.
The misuse of AONB status is only one aspect of a wider malaise in the UK planning system but it does highlight how many avenues are open in the UK to those who wish to prevent development. Similarly, just as any serious reform of the overall planning system has proven to be an unrealistic aspiration, so would any serious reform of AONB status given the political optics that would be involved. Nevertheless, one avenue for change could be to enforce more strignent requirements regarding the management and promotion of AONBs, such as steps to promote greater biodiversity or minimum levels of public access. If local residents were made to bear more of the costs associated with AONB status, then it may make them more hesitant to apply for it in the first instance.