Randall Thorp prepared a masterplan and LVIA for a site at Broad Street, Clifton. An outline planning application sought to deliver up to 80 dwellings on the site, which is located within open countryside and an ‘Important Countryside Gap’. The application was refused by Central Bedfordshire Council due to effects on character, appearance, and the setting and identity of Clifton.

Nicola Jacob provided landscape expert witness services for a subsequent planning appeal, which was allowed in December 2019. The landscape evidence successfully led the Inspector to conclude that the scheme would result in ‘significant benefits in terms of landscape enhancement and a net gain in landscape features, including a softening of the currently hard and abrupt settlement edge’.