Landscape Management

Landscape management is an essential element of the Scottish Government’s investment in the trunk road network and helps to improve Scotland's environment.

The trunk road network stretches the length and breadth of Scotland, passing through a rich and varied landscape including:

• Urban and rural areas
• Rolling lowland plains and rugged highland passes
• Dense native woodland and open expanses of heather moorland
• Exposed rocky coastlines and 
• Burns, rivers and lochs.

Transport Scotland’s landscape policy is to manage the network's soft estate in an efficient, sustainable and cost-effective manner. It has been developed to assist with:

• Maintaining a safe and reliable trunk road network
• Promoting and sustaining healthy growth
• Assisting the trunk roads to integrate as far as possible with the surrounding landscape character
• Minimising driver visibility issues and problems with vegetation encroachment
• Protecting and enhancing biodiversity and reducing habitat fragmentation and
• Ensuring the soft estate is as sustainable and self reliant as possible.

Our landscape policy helps to harmonise the areas adjacent to the trunk road, as far as possible, with the adjacent landscape character whilst supporting a road network that is inherently safe to use and fit for purpose.

It also forms an important element in delivering the Scottish Government's ‘Greener’ strategic objective to improve Scotland's natural and built environment and the sustainable use and enjoyment of it.

As the trunk road authority, Transport Scotland, through its Operating Companies is responsible for the overall management and maintenance of landscape areas on all of Scotland’s trunk roads.

The network Operating Companies are responsible for the preparation and delivery of a Landscape Development Plan, comprising:

• a 5-year landscape maintenance strategy
• a 3-year landscape improvement plan
• a pesticide reduction plan and
• an annual report

Within Scotland there are 3,405km of trunk road representing 6% of all Scotland’s roads passing through a wide variety of landscape character types. The landscape resource associated with these roads ranges from narrow grass verges to relatively broad woodland areas.

Transport Scotland currently spends in excess of £4 million each year on the maintenance and management of the trunk road landscape.