Landscape & Tranquillity

The distinctive qualities of the open Forest are closely linked to commoning, forestry, habitat protection and careful land management. Historically, villages and enclosed countryside were strongly connected to the open Forest through commoning. Scattered houses, fragmented villages, paddocks, hedgerows and grazed verges all formed part of the wider New Forest landscape.

But that character is being steadily eroded.

In recent decades, development, redevelopment, traffic, lighting, noise, and recreational use have all placed increasing pressure on the Forest. Many changes may seem small on their own: a hedge replaced by close-boarded fencing, pasture divided into paddocks, a cottage extended or replaced, a verge hardened, a tree removed, a new sign installed, or extra lighting added.

Taken together, these changes can alter the feel of the Forest. They weaken its rural character and contribute to the slow suburbanisation of places that should remain closely connected to the open landscape.

Tranquillity is also under pressure. Dark skies have been reduced by light from nearby towns, street lighting, security lights, floodlighting and illuminated signs. Noise from traffic and aircraft reaches further into the Forest. It is becoming harder to find places that feel genuinely quiet, remote and set apart from the busy, built-up south of England.

The New Forest Association believes the Forest’s landscape character must be actively protected. Once openness, Tranquillity and rural character are lost, they are difficult to recover.

We support traditional management of meadows, hedgerows and woodlands. We support protecting the most tranquil and remote parts of the Forest and, where possible, extending them.

We support reducing unnecessary lighting, removing landscape clutter, replacing standard highway signs with traditional fingerposts, undergrounding power lines where appropriate, and using road surfaces that reduce traffic noise.

We also support measures to mitigate the effects of sea-level rise and to retain the tree-fringed landscape of the north-west Solent shore as seen from the sea.

We oppose the suburbanisation of Forest properties and villages, including unnecessary hard surfacing, the loss of hedges, close-boarded fencing, the degradation of grazed verges, the subdivision of pasture into small paddocks and piecemeal encroachment onto open Forest land.

We will continue to identify unsightly infrastructure, wirescapes and intrusive signs, and press for their removal, relocation or replacement with more sympathetic designs.

The Forest cannot speak for itself. By protecting its landscape and Tranquillity, we help protect the qualities that make it feel like nowhere else.

Join us and help protect the character and Tranquillity of the New Forest.