Noel Farrer

Noel Farrer is a founding partner of Farrer Huxley Associates.

Opinion... Democracy is a hindrance to good place making

14 August 2018 , By Noel Farrer

A farmer close by the small village of Green Hammerton in North Yorkshire is promoting his farm as a site for 3,000 new homes. It is slap-bang in the middle of the countryside at the mid-point between York and Harrogate.

Opinion... The true extent of design quality

10 May 2018 , By Noel Farrer

In April I attended the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG) conference on design quality. The design professions of the built environment have been pushing the importance of design quality for years with little success. I left the conference believing we are seeing a change.

Opinion... Sensitive schemes deserve support

19 February 2018 , By Noel Farrer

I have just returned from the beautiful landscape of Cervinia, a village tucked under the Matterhorn in the Italian Alps. I have been skiing, which delivers some 40,000 people to the pistes of this area every year.

Opinion... Recognising the value of nature

16 November 2017 , By Noel Farrer

Can anything positive come from the felling of street trees in Sheffield? The sight of contractors unloading chainsaws and chopping down street trees outside residents' front doors is visceral. People feel shock and disbelief.

Opinion... Blurring of the truth in rude health

18 August 2017 , By Noel Farrer

I found myself recently thumbing an old copy of George Orwell's 1984. Flicking through, much of what is unfolding today chimes with my memory of the book.

Farrer On ... Why we need a land strategy

26 May 2017 , By Noel Farrer

The idea that farming has something to do with housing supply may seem tenuous. The reality is that our landscapes are so interdependent that the land management and decisions about what happens in one place have a direct impact on what happens in another

Government has grasped new places need infrastructure and high environmental quality - but the location is wrong

27 January 2017 , By Noel Farrer

New green villages and towns do not resolve housing need, they neglect towns and are a poor use of valuable countryside.

According To Farrer ... Quality landscaping holds key to rural housing problem

25 November 2016 , By Noel Farrer

The housing we are planning and delivering today is storing up a disaster of such proportions that we will regret it, much like we have regretted the scars caused by modernist ideology imposed on our cities in the 1960s.

According To Farrer ... Embracing change through recognition of landscape

16 September 2016 , By Noel Farrer

Noel Farrer sees a link between our treatment of landscape and our decision to vote Brexit.

Farrer on...Brexit casts uncertainty over landscape

15 July 2016 , By Noel Farrer

It has been a tumultuous time with Brexit and, for me personally, the conclusion of the presidency of the Landscape Institute.

Farrer on...Don't forget landscape in Brexit debate

18 May 2016

I have been bemused by the paucity of the debate on Brexit. The relentless drive to justify and capture everything in a neo-liberal context is irrelevant. For me the scrabbling about propounding spurious figures of how poor we will be if we leave or how much richer we will be if we stay completely misses the point.

According To Farrer ... Best compromise is the LI should stay in London

1 April 2016 , By Noel Farrer

Diversity and how we embrace it in all its forms is central to all political agendas we face today. Whether migration, the movement and integration of societies or the more understood agendas of sexism and racism, the challenge of diversity in all its forms underpins the future of people's success in this world.