Noel Farrer

Opinion... Action needed to protect environment

Opinion... War on climate change must be won

No one wants war, yet the world has more conflict today than at any other time in history. All of it hiding behind justification, denial, selfishness, rhetoric, lies and misinformation.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Farrer on...Brexit casts uncertainty over landscape

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

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

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.

According To Farrer ... Government must face climate change reality

Our climate has and will continue to change. People's capacity to accommodate this new reality amazes me.