Forest Time Perspectives on Sustainable Development Strategies – from wiring to inspiring

This piece was written by our CEO Alison Barnes for the Curiosity – The New Intelligence Blog by Jayne Manley of Sunnyhill Consultants.

What does it take to plan effectively for our places in these times of change, competing priorities and divergent perspectives, whether through Spatial Development Strategies, the Land Use Framework or other spatial plans?

Leading the New Forest National Park Authority, which works across a landscape and as a planning authority, requires enduring curiosity about what this truly means. The challenge is huge, but the potential is of equal proportion.

When overwhelm looms, I draw on what I call ‘Forest Time’, the long view of a history that has shaped the landscape; the stories of people, land and nature which can instruct us if we allow ourselves to be curious, to take a moment to look through that lens.

A recent and inspiring story has been making national news from the west of the New Forest, where you’ll find the Queen Oak. Estimated to be around 700 years old, this remarkable tree is a witness to many eras of history, a sapling when the Black Death was raging through the country. Watched over by generations of the local community, it has become a precious nature reserve supporting hundreds of species.

Opposite stands the King Oak, another ancient tree of similar age, declared dead two years ago. Its demise was hastened by vehicles compacting the soil around its base, reducing the life-giving flow of water, nutrients and oxygen from roots to tree. It was too late to save it, but its structure continues to provide habitat and refuge for Forest life.

The local community was determined to learn from the loss of the King and ensure the Queen wasn’t going to suffer a similar fate. The Tree Council, National Park Authority, tree surgeons, philanthropists, and businesses came together, with the parish council installing posts to stop parking on the verge, carrying out works to stabilise the tree, and reducing nearby growth to stop the Queen from being crowded out.

This is a story of community coming together with public, private and third sector organisations to secure a valued asset and symbol of resilience, a commitment that bridges between generations.

This year we are celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the first national parks designated post-war to support the nation’s wellbeing. In the New Forest we have just celebrated 20 years of working for climate, nature and people since our designation in 2005, renewing the 1949 mission, one that can only be fulfilled if we focus on how we work together to care for a place and each other.

This people power, ‘Team New Forest’ as we call it, is the heart and strength of our National Park. Volunteers, residents, businesses, landowners and countless partners. It sounds straightforward, but most of us operate within organisations, each with our own responsibilities, targets and pressures. Even when we collaborate, we tend to do so from within those lanes.

But the landscape doesn’t experience things in silos, sectors or short-term cycles. Nature doesn’t stop at administrative boundaries, and its benefits clean water, cooling, carbon sequestration, flood protection, health, social cohesion, food are as much part of the balance sheet of a place as any built infrastructure.

That’s why, in our current Partnership Plan, we deliberately included ‘Team New Forest’ as a core theme alongside climate, nature, people and place. We wanted the conversation to fundamentally change, moving away from the idea that any one organisation “owns” a plan for a place. It isn’t our plan. Our role is to convene the team, to enable and support as well as play our part, because the future of the New Forest belongs to everyone connected to it.

This is where I think there’s something useful to share with those shaping Spatial Development Strategies. As these conversations gain momentum, particularly with many navigating new local government arrangements, we need to ask what teams we are building for our places. I see a lot of focus on the wiring: structures, governance, evidence base, policy. But inspiring, building shared purpose and trust, cultivating relationships, and understanding each other’s motivations is equally important and too often treated as secondary.

From my perspective, success isn’t only about how you design an SDS and assemble the right evidence. It’s about how you deliver it as a team for the place. When you look back over Forest Time, the sticking points are usually the same: trust, relationships, failing to reconcile competing priorities, not spending enough time understanding each other’s perspectives. We often know intellectually what we need to do, expressed as a target or policy outcome, but our chances of achieving it are too often thwarted by lack of attention to the human connections that make it real: idea by idea, relationship by relationship, project by project, place by place.

So here is an invitation to be curious. What would happen if, instead of starting with governance structures, we started by asking who the team is for that geography? Whether they see themselves that way and what they are motivated to deliver. What if we invested as much time in building shared purpose and trust as we do in drafting documents with the landscape itself as the unifying construct?

There is a huge amount of experience to draw on, in national parks and beyond, passionate communities, cross-sector partnerships, organic collaborations that have grown quietly and put down deep roots. Gemstones of wisdom if you look for them.

The Queen Oak asks us to take the long view beyond the lifetime of an SDS or Government Policy. To work together consistently, not just when crisis strikes. To make a difference through care, custodianship, and shared purpose.

Wiring and inspiring, together.

What if we did that at scale?