Visual amenity

The term ‘visual amenity’ refers to the views and surroundings that create the backdrop to an area.

A Residential Visual Amenity Assessment (RVAA) assesses the potential visual impact of a development on the residential amenity of property.

Guidance on the preparation of Landscape and Visual Impact Assessments is available in GLVIA 3, Guidelines for Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment, Third Edition, published by the Landscape Institute and Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment in 2013.

Additional guidance is available in Landscape Institute technical guidance note TGN 02/2019 at https://landscapewpstorage01.blob.core.windows.net/www-landscapeinstitute-org/2019/03/tgn-02-2019-rvaa.pdf

NB High Speed Rail (Crewe – Manchester) Environmental Statement, Glossary, abbreviations and references, published by the Department for Transport in 2022, defines visual amenity as: ‘The enjoyment or benefit that people derive from a particular view or area in terms of what is seen. When a landscape (or townscape) is changed in some way, the change will be seen by people - often by several different groups of people i.e. visual receptors - and this may affect their views and their visual amenity overall.’

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