A greener Green Belt? Co-developing exploratory scenarios for contentious peri-urban landscapes

Peri-urban landscapes experience conflicting land-use demands from co-occurring urban–rural drivers. In England, Green Belts are urban containment policies which impact on the peri-urban in isolation from the wider landscapes they cover. Green Belts’ endurance in planning policy have resulted in a contentious and politicised policy arena, under significant scrutiny. Whilst research has shown heterogeneous supplies of ecosystem services existing in Green Belts, it is unclear how and whether Green Belts as landscapes may change in the future beyond their urban containment bounds. Though participatory scenarios have been extensively applied to landscape planning, they have not to English Green Belts. Addressing these gaps, a cross-sector stakeholder workshop was held to co-develop exploratory Green Belt landscape scenarios nationally in 20 years’ time. Three scenarios: “Intensify & Diversify”, “Build-Build-Build” and “Multifunctional” were framed on a governance-functionality axis, identifying future drivers, impacts and assumptions. The scenarios reveal Green Belts are under increased pressure from multiple land-uses, societal demands, and policies, many of which are in conflict, stemming from either a prioritisation or balancing of these demands through varying governance mechanisms. Stakeholder critiques and visions reveal a substantial cross-sector consensus for more (multi)functional Green Belts in England, including as “strategic urban support landscapes” to adapt and mitigate threats associated with climate change. Finally, complementary landscape photo-visualisations of “fictitious” landscapes were produced, aided by artificial intelligence, highlighting the growing potential of these tools to support landscape research. This use of fictional landscapes extends the applicability of our results to peri-urban areas experiencing comparable contexts and drivers, such as Western and Northern European regions.