ForeSight

Welcome to the Foresight Project on Land Use Futures (April 2008 - present)

How we use land fundamentally affects our economy, the environment and our society.

Over the coming decades we will face new and potentially competing pressures for land. Demographic changes in the UK, the evolution of the global economy and the impact of climate change, are among the challenges that will affect the demands we make on land. For example, climate change will affect patterns of agriculture and biodiversity whilst changing demographics will create further demands for housing and infrastructure.

The Foresight study is a fresh chance to explore the way we view and value land as a resource in the future.

The project’s findings are due to be launched in January 2010.

Project Aim

The project will explore how land use in the UK could change over the next 50 years. This includes examining society’s future needs and values towards land use. It will use the latest evidence and expert opinion to identify where the greatest pressures on land could be.

Foresight’s analysis will illuminate key short-term choices and identify potential responses which encourage valued and sustainable land use practices, which span the environmental, economic and social sectors.

The project will take an overarching view of the future of land use, across the urban and rural domains. It will create an evidence-based analysis to help policy makers gain a better understanding of whether existing land use patterns, practices and governance structures are fit for the future.

Read the press notice announcing the project.

The project’s terms of reference

Project Process

Foresight will combine robust futures techniques such as modelling and scenarios with the latest scientific and other evidence on land use and factors affecting the use of land. We will commission in-depth reviews of the evidence from leading experts in a range of disciplines including planners, environmental scientists, economists, geographers, ecologists and transport experts.

The project will create an evidence-based analysis which will support policy making and strategic planning both within Government and in other organisations

The project has five phases:

• Scoping
• Gathering evidence, reviewing and exploring the cutting-edge science;
• Futures analysis;
• Analysing and combining the evidence base with futures analysis;
• Preparing a plan for taking forward findings and launching findings.

We are currently in the evidence-gathering phase.

The scoping phase ran from January 2008 to June 2008. The purpose of scoping phase was to explore the broad range of issues, trends, challenges and opportunities the project could explore. Over 100 organisations and interested parties covering a range of interests helped to scope the project. This work shaped the terms of reference. A summary of the scoping process and outcomes and a more detailed description of the project process will be available on the website in Autumn 2008.

The project is overseen by Professor John Beddington, the Government’s Chief Scientific Adviser and Head of the Government Office for Science.

Baroness Kay Andrews OBE, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Communities and Local Government and Jonathan Shaw, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs sponsor this project.

A High Level Stakeholder Group made up of government Ministers, chief scientists and senior representatives from key interested organisations in the public sector, the research community and business will provide strategic direction (membership to be published shortly). To ensure the project’s findings are of the highest technical and scientific standard a Lead Expert Group consisting of leading academics in relevant disciplines will work closely with Foresight to produce the project report.

Project governance organogram.