The Foresight Programme has published its report on land use futures in the UK entitled Land Use Futures: Making the most of land in the 21st century. The purpose of the project was to take a broad look at the future of land use in the UK; to identify the most important challenges and opportunities; to look at what could be done to manage land more sustainably while unlocking its 'value'; and to identify where incremental change would be desirable and where a more strategic shift is needed. In addition to the report, there is a 46 page summary. The summary says that the report has identified challenges in three broad categories:

1. Three key cross-cutting challenges for the next 50 years (relating to the South East of England, climate change, and the delivery of public goods and services – Section 4);
2. Challenges spanning nine sectors of land use – many of which also interact with each other – land for water resources, conservation, agriculture, woodlands and forestry, flood risk management, energy infrastructure, residential and commercial development, transport infrastructure and recreation
3. The need to address 'systemic' issues that are inherent in the system for managing land use which it identifies as:
   • The disconnect between institutional arrangements and private ownership;
   • The need for an overarching perspective;
   • The need to incentivise better the provision of public goods and services;
   • Aligning incentives and policy objectives;
   • Tensions between different parts of the land use governance system;
   • The need to improve how conflicts are addressed – between different sectors, spatial scales, and levels of governance.

It says that a critical choice for Governments is whether to address the future challenges in an incremental and piecemeal fashion, or whether to aim for a more coherent and consistent approach to managing land use – or indeed some combination of the two.

The report also says that the key requirements for meeting these challenges are that:

• Decisions take account of the full value of land in alternative uses;
• Value is assessed on a consistent basis by decision-makers at different spatial levels and in different sectors;
• Private incentives are aligned as far as possible with social objectives and values – to minimise tensions in the system and deliver better outcomes;
• Opportunities for multifunctional land use and benefits are identified and promoted;
• A combination of regulatory, institutional and economic mechanisms are deployed to enable best value to be delivered most efficiently and at least cost.

It says that if these requirements are not met, there is a risk that incremental decision-making on individual project and land choices will continue to create unintended consequences and unsustainable outcomes, some of which may be irreversible. Certainty and direction for all the governance processes at different levels of decision-making are needed, whatever the balance between regulation and market mechanisms. You can download both the full report, the summary and 35 evidence reviews that were commissioned as input to the final report here.