Why Invest in Landscape? - the new campaign from the Landscape Institute, shows how towns around the UK are seeing a positive bottom line benefit by investing in landscape.  From revitalising a small public square to planning for massive new estates, the economic benefits are clearly demonstrated. 

Landscape Institute president Jo Watkins said, “High streets, squares, parks and other public spaces should be special places.  Getting them right is the best investment you can make. Getting them wrong often has people voting with their feet.”

He continued, “When landscape is placed at the heart of the development process, developers profit while businesses and communities reap the economic benefits. Our campaign focuses on the positive impact on business and communities of investment in landscape.”

The campaign features examples from across the UK where councils, house builders and private developers are reaping the rewards of putting the landscape at the heart of their thinking.

• At the Square, Barnstaple, Devon, landscape architects’ improvements have dramatically increased visitor numbers to the town centre.

• For the Pontypool Regeneration Strategy in Wales, landscape architects showed how best to use the town’s natural assets to drive regeneration.

• At Diglis Water, landscape architects significantly increased the saleability of residential property.

• Cambourne in Cambridgeshire saved more than £12 million in development costs by following the advice of their landscape architects

Why Invest in Landscape? demonstrates how landscape architects have:

• increased footfall to local business by creating places people want to spend time in;
• increased the sale and rental values of private housing and commercial property;
• optimised the full potential of a given location for a developer;
• cut development costs through intelligent use of existing landscape features and innovative use of construction waste; and
• put the built and natural environment at the heart of the regeneration process.

Why Invest in Landscape? can be downloaded from the Landscape Institute website at www.landscapeinstitute.org/invest

Download Why Invest in Landscape?