A GENERAL INTRODUCTION TO LAND USE MAPPING IN BRITAIN

Britain is a country with a great variety of physical landscapes and a high population density.Competition for land is intense in some areas and land-use has changed significantly as the impact of urbanisation and suburbanisation has been felt. It is not surprising that, in the twentieth century, geographers became interested in mapping land-use, analysing its patterns, and considering the issues involved and the possible consequences of what they found. The changing land-use of the Brighton and Hove area of Sussex shows many significant features associated with the evolution of southern England in the twentieth century: now, through the efforts of teachers, school pupils and university students, it has, uniquely, been surveyed and published in map form three times over this period.

It was first surveyed by school pupils of the area (using 6" to the mile maps as base maps for survey) as part of the first Land Utilisation Survey of Britain (LUS), directed by Professor L Dudley Stamp.* Printed maps of the field survey were produced at a scale of 1" to the mile. The area was covered on two printed sheets, No 133 (Chichester and Worthing, surveyed between 1932 and 1934) and No 134 (Brighton and Eastbourne, surveyed between 1931 and 1932). Maps covering the whole of Britain were printed. Copies of these maps may still be found in libraries, but they are now relatively rare as the publishers' printing plates were destroyed by bombing during the Second World War. The 1st LUS used a relatively simple survey schedule of nine main categories. A sketch of the main features of the relevant area, as shown on the two 1930s maps, is included with this pamphlet.

The area was surveyed again between 1965 and 1967 by pupils of Varndean Grammar School as part of the Second Land Utilisation Survey directed by Professor Alice Coleman.* * The survey again used 6" to the mile field maps, but this time maps were printed at a scale of 1;25,000 (approximately two and a half inches to the mile), each covering two OS 1:25,000 base sheets. The Brighton and Hove area was published as Sheet 77 of the 2nd LUS. The 2nd LUS used a complex survey schedule of nearly seventy categories, with many agricultural sub¬divisions. It covered England and Wales, but did not follow the 1st LUS in mapping Scotland, because of financial and practical constraints. About 10% of the surveyors' field maps were eventually printed. (Sheet 77, covering the Brighton and Hove area, is still available for purchase and can be acquired in conjunction with this leaflet and with the third survey map).

The area was surveyed for a third time in 1996 by committee members of the Brighton Branch of the Geographical Association and by first-year undergraduates of the University of Sussex, under the direction of Dr J A (Tony) Binns. This was as part of the Geographical Association's LAND USE-UK project, * * * which mapped over 1500 x 1 sq km areas of the United Kingdom in a 'stratified sample' based on a land-type classification developed by the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology. The survey used a schedule of twenty-four categories, with a greater sub¬division of urban categories than in the first two surveys. It was decided that at least one area covered by the printed maps of the 2nd LUS should be mapped as a whole (and published) to show a more synoptic view of land-use. The Brighton and Hove area was chosen and thus a trio of detailed land-use maps spanning sixty years is now available for this region.

* A comprehensive summary of the work of the 1st LUS can he found in; L I) Stamp, THE LAND OF BRITAIN; ITS USE AND MISUSE (Longman 1948)

** The overall conclusions of the 2nd LUS are discussed in ; A Coleman, 'Land-use planning; success or failure?' in ARCHSTEITTS JOURNAL Jan 19th 1977, pp 94-134 The operation and results of Land Use-UK 1996 are reported in : R Vietiord, LAND USE-UX; A SURVEY FOR 'THE 21ST CENTURY (Geographical Asrattiation, 1997)