Strategic planning and place branding in a World Heritage cultural landscape: a case study of the English Lake District, UK

What roles do strategic planning and place branding play in the context of UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS)? Here it is theorized that the processes associated with the nomination and management of WHS cultural landscapes involve an integration of planning and branding, with both practices influencing the articulation of a place’s universal value. A descriptive qualitative case study of the Lake District National Park, UK, traces the ways in which this cultural landscape was conceptualized, managed and communicated through the work of the Lake District National Park Authority (LDNPA) between 2006 and 2018. This illustrates how inscription of the English Lake District as a WHS in 2017 was a result of a Partnership approach to governance by the LDNPA, and that the Partnership’s vision of ‘sustainable development in action’ responded to planning and branding imperatives. The resulting WHS inscription recognized an ‘evolving’ cultural landscape comprising multiple landscape identities and interests – agro-pastoral, artistic/literary, and nature conservation – which are simultaneously managed through planning and promoted through leveraging the WHS brand.