Have your say on how a third of Cornwall gets protected

Drive across Cornwall and there’s a decent chance you’ll cross in and out of a legal designation without ever noticing a sign for it. From cliffs above a golden Cornish beach to the wild reaches of Bodmin Moor, huge swathes of the county sit inside Cornwall National Landscape, managed under its own statutory plan. Cornwall Council is now asking the public to help decide what that plan should say for the next five years.

What is Cornwall National Landscape?

Cornwall National Landscape, formerly known as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, covers around 958 square kilometres, close to 370 square miles. That works out at roughly a third of the county, and makes it the ninth largest protected landscape in the country.

What makes it unusual is its shape. Rather than one continuous block, it is made up of 12 separate geographical sections spread right around the coast and across the moor, from Hartland in the north down through the Camel Estuary, St Agnes, West Penwith, the Lizard’s south coast stretches, Rame Head and Bodmin Moor inland. Each section has its own character and its own pressures, and around 95 parish and town councils have some part of the National Landscape within their boundary.

A plan Cornwall Council has to review by law

Cornwall Council has a statutory duty under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 to produce a Management Plan for the National Landscape and review it every five years. The plan sets the policies and strategy for how the environment across those 12 sections is conserved and enhanced, covering everything from farming and nature recovery to the pressures of tourism and development.

The current Management Plan, covering 2022 to 2027, stays in force while this review is underway. A first round of consultation ran between March and May 2026, gathering views on what matters most to people. The council says that feedback is now shaping a second stage, moving from collecting concerns to working out how the plan should actually be delivered. The new plan for 2027 to 2032 is due to go before Cornwall Council’s Cabinet for approval in May 2027.

How to have your say

The second round of consultation is a short survey, ten questions, open now and running until 30 September 2026. It follows face to face and online sessions that have already popped up at events including Liskeard Show, Stithians Show and Camelford Show over the summer.

Anyone who lives in, works in, or simply loves Cornwall can take part through the Let’s Talk Cornwall consultation page, which also has an interactive map for checking exactly which parts of the county fall inside the designation. The council’s privacy notice confirms responses to open questions may be published in full, so anyone with strong views on how the next five years should look now has a direct route to have them heard, before the window closes at the end of September.