Adapted from a Landscape Institute press release.
New homes, new landscapes: Tony Juniper CBE CEnv delivers the Landscape Institute Jellicoe Lecture 2025
The Natural England Chair used the lecture to argue for a planning system that is opportunity-led, scalable, and strategic, before being appointed as an Honorary Fellow of the Landscape Institute by its President, Carolin Göhler
Tony Juniper CBE, Chartered Environmentalist (CEnv) and Chair of Natural England, was the guest speaker at the Landscape Institute (LI) Jellicoe Lecture 2025, an annual event dedicated to progressing conversation on the landscape profession.
The Landscape Institute works alongside Natural England on a range of initiatives, from Landscape Character Assessment to Biodiversity Net Gain, and was delighted to welcome Tony to deliver this year’s lecture.
The topic, ‘New homes, new landscapes’, at once paid tribute to the seminal ‘New lives, New landscapes’ book by Nan Fairbrother (1913-71), and renewed its importance in the context of the government’s building agenda.
Professionals from across the built and natural environment attended the lecture, held on 27 November as the Planning and Infrastructure Bill was close to being passed, to hear Tony’s perspective on how the delivery of new housing can also create long-term economic, environmental and societal value.
Following the lecture, Tony answered a series of questions from the audience, pointing out that landscape-led development is about hearts and minds as much as policy and law, and was thanked by LI President, Carolin Göhler, for all he has achieved in connecting people, place and nature. For these achievements, he was presented with the title of Honorary Fellow of the Landscape Institute.
Summary of Tony Juniper’s Jellicoe Lecture
Tony argued that as a country we must overcome assumptions that the protection and enhancement of nature acts as a blocker to built development and economic growth.
The planning system is key to this dynamic, but is currently inadequately positioned to deliver value and mutual opportunity. We need a planning system that is opportunity-led, flexible, scalable, and strategic. “It’s not about looking for more restrictions – it’s about looking for better outcomes.”
Nan Fairbrother’s ‘New lives, new landscapes’ (published 1970) was pioneering because it sought to portray environmental issues within a broader social and cultural context, he said. It was published not only at a time when housebuilding was being delivered at scales unimaginable today, but when designations including Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty and Sites of Special Scientific Interest were also being launched.
We must take a similarly broad view today: “Landscape is not something in a National Park, it is everywhere. We all live in them.”
Looking forward, it’s about making better places for people to live and work and embedding nature recovery and climate resilience from the outset. To do this, developers, landscape architects, ecologists, and planners must work together.
Policy such as Local Nature Recovery Strategies and Spatial Development Strategies have the potential to deliver growth and nature recovery locally and regionally, while also meeting the essential needs of people and ensuring there is a social dimension to environmental policy.
However, more important than strong policy, Tony argued, is culture. “It’s about people working together and having a common aim. To turn the dial on nature, more people need to see it as being important. We need to listen to them, engage, and find a compelling national narrative.”
Engage and influence
Tony Juniper’s Jellicoe Lecture was delivered shortly after the publication of Natural England’s Strategy, Recovering Nature for Growth, Health and Security, and in the same year that the Landscape Institute published its flagship briefing, Maximising value from built development: How a landscape-led approach delivers more for people, place and nature.
