Policy ENV4: Protecting the Setting of Horsford
Policy ENV4: Protecting the Setting of Horsford
- The Neighbourhood Plan defines land to the north of the Broadland Northway (A1270), as shown on the Policies Map, as a Local Green Gap for the application of national decision-making policies on creating well-designed places and improving the natural environment. This designation will maintain the long-term physical and visual separation with the urban area of Norwich.
View the Local Green Gap on the Policy Map
- The policy anticipates development pressures that may arise from the growth of the urban area of Norwich by defining a Local Green Gap to the north of the Broadland Northway (A1270). The primary purpose of the Local Green Gap is to maintain long-term physical and visual separation between Horsford and the urban edge of Norwich, thereby preventing coalescence and safeguarding distinct settlement identities. Landscape character and green infrastructure are supporting considerations insofar as they contribute to this context rather than objectives in their own right as part of this policy. The designation helps to maintain a clear separation between the village and the urban area of Norwich to retain their identities as a rural and urban edge respectively. In this respect it is a key attribute of the context that the NPPF expects proposals to respond to, currently DP3.1. The extent of land identified is the minimum area of land necessary for the policy to have effect and is defined on the Policies Map.
- The presence, scale or footprint of development is not, in itself, determinative of harm to the Local Green Gap. The key test is whether development would lead to an unacceptable erosion of the open land that provides physical and visual separation between Norwich and Horsford, particularly through continuous built form, suburbanising character, or the perception of settlement coalescence. The policy ensures that schemes can appropriately respond to the local context in the design of their schemes.
- Broadland District Council’s Architectural and Landscape Character Assessment forming part of the South Norfolk and Broadland Design Code SPD 2026 identifies the land forming the Local Green Gap as part of the ‘Spixworth Wooded Estatelands’ and recognises that it forms an important landscape setting to the city of Norwich and villages. It seeks to conserve the predominantly rural character of the area, ensuring that any new development is well integrated into the surrounding landscape and maintains greenspace between the edges of the Norwich urban area and adjacent villages and conserves and enhances the landscape setting of Norwich. While landscape character evidence informs the detailed assessment of proposals, the justification for the Local Green Gap is primarily driven by the spatial context. Changes to landscape character, including the construction of the Broadland Northway, do not alter the continuing need to prevent coalescence between Norwich and Horsford.