Once an area has been selected for consideration for designation, it will be considered in detail, using the guidance referred to above. This guidance explains how Natural England normally expects to apply the statutory designation criteria in practice when assessing landscapes for designation.

Natural beauty is not exhaustively defined in the legislation. It is also a very subjective characteristic of a landscape and ultimately involves a value judgment. In deciding whether an area has natural beauty, Natural England must therefore make a judgment as to whether people are likely to perceive a landscape as having sufficient natural beauty.

In order to make these judgments (some of which are subjective) in a transparent and consistent way, the Guidance sets out the criteria that Natural England uses. These include landscape and scenic quality, relative wildness, relative tranquillity and contributions made to natural beauty by natural and cultural heritage features and associations.