Presentation given to the first local stakeholders meeting of the EPSRC BlueGreenCities project on some local perspectives of BlueGreenCities, including drivers, current state of play, challenges, and hopes for what the project might achieve.
2. What I’ll cover
Overview of the City’s aspirations on
Green and Blue Infrastructure
Benefits of a blue-green approach
Drivers
Current position
Challenges to delivery
Some of the questions we hope that the
project will help us to answer
3. Our aspirations
Want Newcastle to be a resilient, sustainable,
and attractive city where Green Infrastructure
is commonplace
Generally well accepted amongst policy
makers that Green Infrastructure is a way
forward for many local authority agendas
Benefits for many areas including Public
Health, climate change mitigation and
adaptation, Flood Management, Air Quality,
Economic Development, Ecology and
Biodiversity
4. Drivers
Council’s four priorities
National Planning Policy Framework
Flood and Water Management Act 2010
Climate Change Act 2008
Cities Commitment in National
Adaptation Programme
Recognition of multiple policy benefits
5. Current position
Good amount of green space in the city already
Outline GI strategy developed for the City –
highlighted key areas for improvement
Local Plan containing policies on flood risk, green
infrastructure and climate change
NCC a lead local flood authority – duties to reduce
risk from surface water flooding, and to set up SUDS
Approval Body
Water cycle study/Surface Water Management Plan
highlighted need to manage surface water differently
to accommodate growth due to sewerage capacity
6.
7. Current position
Good amount of green space in the city already
Outline GI strategy developed for the City –
highlighted key areas for improvement
Local Plan containing policies on flood risk, green
infrastructure and climate change
NCC a lead local flood authority – duties to reduce
risk from surface water flooding, and to set up SUDS
Approval Body
Water cycle study/Surface Water Management Plan
highlighted need to manage surface water differently
to accommodate growth due to sewerage capacity
9. Current position
Good amount of green space in the city already
Outline GI strategy developed for the City –
highlighted key areas for improvement
Local Plan containing policies on flood risk, green
infrastructure and climate change
NCC a lead local flood authority – duties to reduce
risk from surface water flooding, and to set up SUDS
Approval Body
Water cycle study/Surface Water Management Plan
highlighted need to manage surface water differently
to accommodate growth due to sewerage capacity
10. Challenges
Reducing funding to the public sector
(not just Local Government)
Difficult to make the business case as
hard to quantify some benefits
Some hesitance/doubt about the
effectiveness of such measures vs.
hard engineering, maintenance costs
etc.
11. What we hope the project will
help us understand
The effectiveness of Blue/Green Infrastructure in addressing flood
risk, now and in the future
How long term pressures such as population growth, demographic
change and climate change will change flood risk
Some of the ecosystems services provided by GI in the city and the
potential for extending these
The extent to which actions of individuals can make a difference in
flood management
The potential range of finance models for funding such an approach
based on monetising the benefits – e.g. health contributions, private
sector
What institutional capacities/arrangements are needed to make such
approaches succeed
A better understanding of skills/supply chains requirements
12. Kit England
Policy and Information Officer
Newcastle City Council
T: 0191 211 5098
E: kit.england@newcastle.gov.uk
Notes de l'éditeur
Welcome,
Pleased to be here to speak today. I realise that this is just the start of a really exciting couple of years for water management and Green Infrastructure. Hopefully in the ten or fifteen minutes that I have, I’ll be able to give you an insight into why the project is so important
I’ll not be able to go into all the detail here but instead, intending to give you a bit of an overview of the
current work to date in Newcastle, our aspirations around blue and green infrastructure and how we hope the project will help us in .
Although I’m up here, we have a number of local stakeholders, so there are colleagues from the Council, Northumbrian Water and Environment Agency who all know more than me on different aspects so when it comes to questions I’ll point you in their direction
Run over four priorities – Working city, decent neighbourhoods, tackling inequalities. GI supports these
Starting from a good level
Run over four priorities – Working city, decent neighbourhoods, tackling inequalities. GI supports these
Percentage of green space in the city: 55%
Percentage of water areas in the city: 5%
Nearly one-quarter (17.05 km2) of total green space is publically accessible
The percentage of citizens living within 300m of public green urban areas: Based on
the 2011 census population total 89% of citizens live within 300m of public green area that
has an area greater than 5000m² (European Indicator Standard).
Fair number of bullet points here, so no pressure! Some of these come from the work packages in the project, and some from the
To a greater or lesser extent