The LI has submitted a response to the government’s call for evidence on a Strategy for the Built Environment Professions, Trades and Occupations. We welcome the consultation and offer a constructive response, aimed at making the strategy work for communities, places and the environment, as well as for buildings. In our submission we argue that landscape professionals are well placed to bring together the many strands of placemaking, both at strategic and detailed levels, for the benefit of people and nature.

Our central message is that landscape shapes how places perform over the long term. Landscape should be included as a visioning tool and design driver from the outset, not treated as an afterthought once buildings are designed. Design quality is judged at approval stage, but whether a place succeeds is decided over decades through how it is used, managed, adapted and valued.

We make five main points:

• a whole-life approach from vision to stewardship creates the most value
• the strategy should cover places, not just buildings.
• many decisions that determine a place’s success are currently made before buildings are designed, stifling their potential.
• landscape and natural systems function as infrastructure and should be planned and maintained to the same standards.
• landscape competence can be assured through existing arrangements e.g. via the CMLI.

We do not call for regulation of the landscape title. Instead, we ask for the CMLI to be recognised as a competence marker at each stage of a project, from pre-design to stewardship. We also call for the rebuilding of in-house landscape capacity within planning authorities to support the delivery of valued places.

Our response draws on case studies contributed by member practices, covering residential developments, healthcare, defence rehabilitation, town-centre regeneration, rail infrastructure, retrofit drainage, the strategic road network and nature restoration. Each case study illustrates how early and sustained landscape input improves outcomes for communities.