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Organisation: Natural England
Date: March 2010
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- Natural England believes that everyone should have access to good quality natural greenspace near to where they live, ie. 'Nature Nearby'. This provides a broad range of benefits to people and the quality of their lives, covering all the ecosystem services we depend on.
Organisation: Natural Economy North West
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- Creating sustainable grey infrastructure. A guide for developers, planners, and project managers.
Author(s): Gerald Dawe and Alison Millward
Date: 1st May 2008
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- Statins are a class of drugs used to lower cholesterol levels in people at risk of heart disease. The contrast usefully with the relatively 'non-technical' but nonetheless complex, notion of 'green' open spaces.
Organisation: Natural Economy North West
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- The term 'infrastructure' is a generally accepted definition used to describe the basic physical and organisational structures that are needed for the operation and organisation of society. The term is, for example, often applied to buildings, roads, utilities and the like. By way of contrast, our environmental assets and systems are frequently viewed in a more fragemented way - often as individual, possibly isolated, elements of green space within the larger landscape.
Organisation: Liverpool City Council
Date: 2005
Evidence type: Policy
The Parks Strategy represents the City Council's long-term aspiration for Liverpool's rich and varied legacy of parks. It sets a direction for long-term planning, improved corporate and community co-ordination and seeks to apply a best practice approac...
Key Messages:
- Liverpool's parks have evolved through a number of distinct periods of development producing a diverse range of heritage, park estate and semi-natural landscapes. This represents an important environmental, recreational, educational and health resource which supports community activities, nature conservation and sport and tourism. Parks provide local character, and an attractive refuge from the built environment.
- Potential positive attributes of parks and open spaces:
- Parks are the 'natural health service' providing landscapes to enjoy whether casually or through activity, both informal and formal.
- The Vision:
- Improving Park Condition and Quality: The City Council will work closely to involve local communities to reduce anti-social behaviour, educate young people in the value and potential of our parks, how they can meet local needs better, improve the appearance of parks and make better use of resources.
- Principally it is recognised that parks are for people and how successful they are in fulfilling their multi-faceted role is dependant on the community, as neighbours, users, supporters and enablers. Along with the community the greatest factor in the state of our parks are resources.
Organisations: Mersey Travel, Knowsley Borough Council, Liverpool City Council, Sefton Council, St Helens Council, Wirral Council
Date: 2006
Evidence type: Policy
The Accessibility Strategy sets out a range of measures to ensure that, particularly those living in the most disadvantaged areas of Merseyside are able to access the opportunities arising from economic and social regeneration. The Accessibility Strate...
Key Messages:
- The Merseyside Economic Review recognises that poor education, skills levels, unemployment and low income go hand in hand with poor housing. The Merseyside Economic Review also highlights the links these issues have with poor health and the greater demand on health services.
- By developing schemes and initiatives which improve accessibility significant contributions can be made to:
- The five Merseyside local authorities in partnership with Merseytravel have an important role to play in improving accessibility by:
- An access to fresh food group has been established, led by Heart of Mersey, a Coronary Heart Disease prevention programme launched because Merseyside has some of the highest incidences of Coronary Heart Disease in England.
- Improving the liveability of Liverpool and the wider Merseyside area is also a priority to develop vibrant, attractive and balanced neighbourhoods. Integral to this liveability agenda is the vision of a clean, safe secure and accessible environment. Improving the health and well being of the community is also a priority.
- The role of walking and cycling in improving accessibility is not to be underestimated.
- Merseytravel has been successful in securing 3million pounds of European Objective 1 funding to support measures which address transport to life opportunities such as employment, training, health services, fresh food shopping as well as social and leisure activities
- Improving access to leisure facilities, and promotion of cycling and walking, can help to encourage a healthier lifestyle and support Government's aim to increase levels of physical activity for both adults and children.
Organisation: The Mersey Partnership
Date: 2007
Evidence type: Policy
The Action Plan for the Liverpool City Region sets out our investment framework to deliver this growth over the period 2008 - 2011. The plan gives details of projects and programmes to be implemented across the Liverpool City Region over the coming thr...
Key Messages:
- Priority 1: Enterprise development
- Priority 2: Business infrastructure
- Priority 3: High growth business investment
- Priority 4: Skilled workforce and working communities
- Priority 5: Environmental performance
- Priority 6: Sustainable communities
Evidence type: Research
This paper was co-authored by Tom Butlin and Susannah Gill of The Mersey Forest team, and explores the potential for the landscape around cities to help them adapt to climate change
Organisation: Northwest Regional Development Agency
Date: 2010
Evidence type: Research
Linked by a ship canal and a world famous river, the two great cities of Manchester and Liverpool span an area with a £50 billion economy and a population of over six million people, making it comparable to entire countries such as Denmark, Finla...
Key Messages:
- Much of the area is inaccessible or fragmented by roads and rail. What could be an active and beautiful landscape is often closed off, unloved and can be uninspiring. There are also significant pressures on the land - overstretched infrastructure, congestion, population growth, flooding and climate change - as well as enduring pockets of deprivation, poor health and lack of opportunity, despite the significant progress of regeneration and development in recent years.
- This framework offers a genuine opportunity for the Lower Mersey Basin and its communities to demonstrate a new approach to development which: increases the resilience of the area and helps it to adapt and address climate change; gives people and businesses a new and inspirational reason to relocate to the area; creates activities and opportunities to improve health and wellbeing; and increases the value and productivity of the land.
- Some of the possibilities include:
Organisation: London Climate Change Partnership
Date: October 2009
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- As London's climate changes, so too will its biodiversity. We are already seeing differences in London's biodiversity compared with the surrounding countryside, for example differences in phenology which are likely to become more pronounced with climate change.
Organisation: Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)
Date: June 2009
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- It is now clear from scientific evidence that global warming since the mid 20th century is largely due to human activity. That's why the world, including the UK, needs to act now to limit future climate change and to prepare for the change that we cannot avoid.
Organisation: Natural England
Date: 2009
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- This report provides a summary of the achievements of over 20 years of agri-environment schemes (AES) to date.
Organisations: Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), ADAS UK
Date: March 2010
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- Air pollution cause annual health costs of roughly £15 billion to UK citizens. This is comparable to the growing annual health costs of obesity, estimated at £10 billion (although the basis of the cost calculation differs). Many of our activities, especially transport and energy generation, contribute to both local air pollution and global climate change, so it make sense to consider how the linkages between these policy areas can be managed to best effect.
Author(s): Ian Dickie and Matthew Rayment
Organisation: Royal Society for the Protection of Birds
Date: 29th September 2000
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- The economic benefits from forestry are not restricted to commercial returns (which in the UK are often marginal), but include a range of other benefits to owners, users and non-users. Appropriate management of native woodlands and environmentally sensitive management of other forests can bring sustainable benefits to both rural economies and to biodiversity. Several case studies are presented which demonstrate this. It is the wider economic benefits, of which non-market benefits are an important part, that determine the total economic value of woodlands and that justify public support for forestry. They should therefore have more weight in the woodland grant system.
Organisations: Woodland Trust, 4NW, Cheshire East Council, Cheshire West and Chester Council, Environment Agency, Government Office for the North West, Halton Borough Council, Highways Agency, Homes and Communities Agency, Knowsley Borough Council, Liverpool City Council, Manchester City Council, Network Rail, Salford City Council, Sefton Council, St Helens Council, Trafford Council, Warrington Borough Council, Wigan Metropolitan Borough Council, Wirral Council
Date: 2010
Evidence type: Policy
Atlantic Gateway is a framework for collaboration between the Manchester and Liverpool city regions which will help unlock their full sustainable economic growth potential. This framework outlines how partners will work together to resolve common barri...
Key Messages:
- The Atlantic Gateway will be a low carbon, sustainable, economic growth zone of international importance, driven by two of Europe's leading city regions.
- Theme 3: Sustainable Infrastructure
- Theme 4: Creating places that retain and attract
- Atlantic Gateway has a number of exceptional assets:
- Theme 1: Priority - Green technology and renewable energy
- Climate change is already having an impact upon the development potential of the Atlantic Gateway in relation to flood risk, water supply and water management.
- There is significant potential for energy crops in the area. Unfortunately economic factors and the importance of maintaining local food production are likely to negatively impact on the take up of these crops.
- There is potential to create a 'bio-region' across the Atlantic Gateway which could deliver a range of sustainable outcomes through investments in the area's landscapes and green infrastructure - taking the landscape as a resource to help our growing cities feed their citizens and power their buisness
- Flood risk and water management
Organisation: Arup
Date: 2005
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- Climate change is one of the most serious issues facing us at the start of the 21st century. It may come to threaten the very future of humanity as well as many natural ecosystems.
Organisations: Liverpool City Council, Liverpool Primary Care Trust
Date: 2008
Evidence type: Policy
The Joint Strategic Needs Assessment is a document which describes the health, care and well-being needs of people in Liverpool, both now and in the future. This document contains a wealth of information about the well-being and health of the populatio...
Key Messages:
- The health and well-being of the population will be determined by improvements which can be made in education, income, housing, employment and the living environment.
- The Liverpool housing market renewal will replace a high proportion of old properties creating new homes and facilities during the next 10 years. The sustainability and success of the programme will impact on health and wellbeing.
- Regular physical activity substantially reduces the risk of becoming overweight and obese, as well as improving mental health and well-being. However people living in deprived areas often lack access to sporting facilities due to lack of money or inadequate facilities compared to more affluent areas. There may also be a fear of crime or antisocial behaviour which makes people less inclined to walk or cycle in their neighbourhood.
- The priority issues for many people to achieve a better quality of life were to improve local environmental conditions - especially parks and open spaces - and to increase access to leisure and cultural facilities, such as sport centres and swimming pools
- The plan promotes healthy lifestyles as a way of preventing diabetes.
Organisation: University of Manchester
Date: December 2009
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- Threats of extreme weather identified for Greater Manchester - Eco Cities researchers have looked at climate records and media reports covering the past 65 years to help understand which extreme weather events could pose a threat to Greater Manchester in the future.
Organisation: BDP
Date: 2009
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- Changes to our climate and dwindling finite natural resources are increasingly playing a role in shaping our buildings. The approach of the previous 70 years or so of designing buildings and urban systems which use large amounts of cheap, seemingly inexhaustible fossil fuel energy is outdated and discredited.
Organisation: The Mersey Forest
Date: March 2010
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- The driver for this report has been from the supply side. Can fuel be sourced from within the Borough? Could long overdue woodland management be stimulated by a demand for biomass fuel? When would fuel from within the borough run out and have to be brought from 'outside'? These are pressing questions as the roll out of biomass boilers in public buildings begins, and can be simply answered.
Organisation: Natural England
Date: 2010
Evidence type: Research
Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) is a technique used to develop a consistent and comprehensive understanding of what gives England's landscape its character. It uses statistical analysis and application of structured landscape assessment techniques...
Key Messages:
- The urban sprawl has expanded in successive waves since the establishment of Liverpool as a major trading port in the 15th century. Some docks, such as Albert Dock, have been given new vitality with leisure and tourist developments.
- Outside the ring road, the majority of development is post-war housing with some areas of farmland, golf courses and parkland associated with country houses, such as Croxteth and Bowring. The conurbation also contains several Victorian public parks. Birkenhead Park, designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, was a first of its kind and integrated residential development into a parkland setting.
- The amount of open countryside within the urban fabric of the Merseyside conurbation is extremely limited and generally is restricted to isolated pockets of versatile, high quality Grade 2 land. To a lesser extent, the Leeds and Liverpool Canal and the railway network form important landscape corridors.
Organisations: Liverpool First, Liverpool City Council
Date: 2009
Evidence type: Policy
The Children and Young People's Plan is a single strategic and overarching plan for all services which affect children and young people across the city. It sets out how the City Council, with its strategic partners, intends to achieve improvements in e...
Key Messages:
- Many children in Liverpool grow up in disadvantaged circumstances. Liverpool is ranked the most deprived local authority area in England and the most deprived local authority for the level of concentrated deprivation.
- Key priority: Reduce childhood obesity and promote a culture of physical activity and healthy eating.
- Key priority: Increase access to positive activities for children and young people, and continue to develop and strengthen a community based, sustainable, flexible and high quality network of play and youth service provision within communities.
- Key priority: Improve attendance and behaviour of learners.
- Building Schools for the Future offers an unprecedented opportunity to transform methods of learning and the physical learning environment.
- There is a requirement in the DCSF Children's Plan for play to be considered in terms of play zones and traffic calming as part of housing and regeneration initiatives. Liaison with the City Council's planning team is ongoing.
Organisation: World Health Organisation
Date: 2004
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- The need to collect examples of successful actions to protect children from harmful environmental risk factors has arisen as part o the development of the Children's Environment and Health Action Plan for Europe(CEHAPE) and in preparation for its future implementation.
Organisation: Ecotec
Date: 25th October 2006
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- Raising the quality of the North's places is fundamentally important in supporting the Northern Way's ambition to significantly accelerate economic growth. Green Infrastructure planning can add considerable value to this process of renewal and offers new opportunities to make real progress in creating sustainable economic growth alongside a transformation in the quality of the North's residential offer.
Author(s): Robert Shaw (TCPA), Michelle Colley and Richenda Connell of Acclimatise
Organisation: Town and Country Planning Association
Date: 2007
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- Adaptation is needed now because the climate is already changing. Many of the climatic changes forecast for the next 30-40 years are 'locked in' - the result of past greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Regardless of the success, or otherwise, of emissions reduction efforts, some climate change is therefore inevitable.
Organisations: Liverpool City Council, Liverpool First
Date: 1st January 2009
Evidence type: Policy
This document brings together the members of Liverpool First in a commitment to make Liverpool an environmentally responsible, thriving international city for the future. A city that minimises negative environmental and climate change impacts and begin...
Key Messages:
- Below are a few of the low carbon steps Liverpool is taking to achieve the vision of the sustainable communities' strategy:
- Green Spaces will be essential in both mitigating (reducing) the causes of climate change but also helping the city to adapt to the effects of climate change such as flooding and extreme heat. The physical benefits will also contribute to reducing adverse physical health consequences and reduce the anxiety and stress associated with extreme weather events.
- Liverpool are already working to support a new mindset: planning developments to be accessible, reducing the need to travel and promoting public transport, cycling and walking not only to reduce emissions but reduce congestion, improve air quality and tackle obesity by building exercise into the daily routine.
- Not all impacts will be negative and opportunities have been identified on which Liverpool will be acting to make the most to enhance the quality of life and well being for the people and businesses of the City.
- Liverpool will work with partners, and in particular housing partners, to provide neighbourhood based environmental advice to citizens and particularly develop community resilience against the most immediate risks of climate change such as flooding or extreme heat events
- Liverpool will develop with others, and in particular transport, health, and fire service partners, a comprehensive locally based behavioural change campaign helping people both reduce energy use and reduce costs
- Liverpool will identify new community energy generation projects and source funding
- Policy, strategy and communications
- Climate Change Strategic Framework Priority Actions
Organisations: Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC), Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), Department of Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, Department of Children, Schools & Families, Department of Culture, Media & Sport, Department of Health (DoH), Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, Department of Trade and Industry, Department of Transport, Department of Work & Pensions, HM Treasury
Date: 2010
Evidence type: Policy
The Earth's climate is changing. Recognising the challenge this presents to all aspects of our economy and daily activities, all major government departments have published their plans for contributing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and action re...
Key Messages:
- Towards adaptation the government is:
- Our aim for the agriculture, forestry and land management sector is to reduce emissions by as much as is technologically possible whilst still protecting an environmentally secure, global food supply.
- Key adaptation principles
- Some significant activity is already taking place across government - including updating planning policy on climate change, improved management of risks from flooding and coastal erosion, water resource management, health advice and heatwave management. Departmental Adaptation Plans are an opportunity to review these activities, to assess how far current efforts are contributing to successful adaptation to climate change, and to identify what more needs to be done.
- Climate change also offers opportunities for British businesses, both at home and abroad.
- Future climate change could have a major impact on our natural environment, including wildlife and the habitats they rely on. Yet to cope with climate change we will increasingly rely on the effective functioning of natural processes within the environment; for instance, the free flood control and storm buffering benefits provided by coastal habitats like salt marsh and sand dunes have been estimated at over 1 billion pounds per year.
- Adapting the built environment (our homes and offices, green spaces and local transport routes) is vital to ensure that the UK as a whole is adapting well.
- Climate change will have a significant impact on our wildlife and the habitats they rely on. But a healthy natural environment is also our safety net, delivering vital services to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change; for example, urban green spaces can help to cool surrounding built up areas by up to 4 degrees C, while trees can provide shady areas
- Flooding and coastal erosion can cause significant damage and disruption. Around 5.2 million properties in England are currently at some risk of flooding from surface water (e.g. rainwater running across land), rivers and/or the sea.
Organisation: Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)
Date: 2006
Evidence type: Policy
The Code for Sustainable Homes has been introduced to drive a step-change in sustainable home building practice. It is a standard for key elements of design and construction which affect the sustainability of a new home. It will become the single natio...
Key Messages:
- The Code uses a sustainability rating system - indicated by stars, to communicate the overall sustainability performance of a home. A home can achieve a sustainability rating from one to six stars depending on the extent to which it has a
- The option of installing soakaways will gain points under the Code.
- Points can also be gained by assessing and minimising the ecological impact of the construction of the home.
- Points are awarded for the following measures:
Organisation: The Stationery Office
Date: 1st January 2009
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- UK forests and trees have the potential to play an important role in the nation's response to the challenges of the changing climate. Substantial responses from the UK forestry sector will contribute both to mitigations by abatement of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to adapation, so ensuring that the multiple benefits of sustainable forestry continue to be provided in the UK.
Organisation: Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG)
Date: November 2007
Evidence type: Research
Key Messages:
- To support an increase in economic growth, in particular housing, requires increased investment in infrastructure to mitigate the impact of developments and make growing communities sustainable. The infrastructure required includes public transport, roads, hospitals, schools, parks and playgrounds and other community facilities. The Government is committed to ensuring that local communities are able to obtain the necessary resources to fund the infrastructure needed to support economic and housing growth.
