We need to have good information about the state of our countryside and how it is changing so that policy can be based on sound evidence. Fortunately, a number of datasets are available that describe different aspects of our rural areas and we can now use them to gain an insight into the way our landscapes are changing.
The Countryside Quality Counts Project aimed, for the first time, to bring these different sources of information together, and to use them to track change across the Character Areas of England.