The Prince's Mayday Network

Moore Environment has just joined the Prince's Mayday Network:-

The Mayday Network is a collaboration of businesses taking action on climate change and resource depletion. In a non competitive space, Mayday businesses work together and with partners to seek out and promote the best solutions to the major environmental challenges we face. When taken to scale these new innovations contribute to creating the pathway to better ways of working and to a sustainable future in which businesses can prosper alongside a healthy environment and society. These tried and tested business solutions are stored on the free-to-access Mayday Journey.
The Mayday Campaign seeks to mobilize business on climate change and resource depletion. It is based on the premise that our economy and society will only reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and protect the natural world we all depend on if the business community is fully involved and committed to sustainability.
The Mayday Journey is an online resource documenting the simple steps that any company can take to take action on climate change from changing light bulbs through to changing mindsets.

Join today - go to www.maydaynetwork.com 

Forum For Tomorrow

On Friday 25^th March, Lucy attended a networking breakfast hosted by Forum for Tomorrow (fft) West Midlands.  The event was an excellent opportunity to network with ally professions including civil engineers, architects, structural engineers and quantity surveyors.  Guest speaker for the event, Steve Fitzgerald, outlined recent ‘Business in the Community’ research which demonstrates the benefits for businesses in engaging with their local community to tackle key social issues such as climate change and sustainability. 


Steve also highlighted The Prince’s Mayday Network, ‘a collaboration of businesses taking action on climate change and resource depletion.’  The aim of the Prince’s Mayday network is to provide a non-competitive platform for businesses to work together, sharing knowledge and promoting the best solutions to major environmental challenges.

J and F Partnership Inclusive Landscapes and Sustainable Communities

J and F Partnership – Disability Awareness Workshops for Designers and Public Service Providers

How not to provide disabled access

We are very sorry to be losing Frances Carroll from Moore Environment at the end of March. She has decided to focus on her own consultancy J & F Partnership, specialising in design for inclusive landscapes and sustainable communities. Frances’ new company will provide workshops and seminars in design best practice to enhance the experience of physically disabled users. 





Workshops will include key issues for design, how to develop an empathetic approach and will include advice gained from her partner Joe and his 30 years ‘real life experience’ as a wheelchair user. Frances can be contacted on email@rainbow1975.plus.com and 01789 763878. Whilst we will lose Frances from our Company she will remain a key member of our network and we hope to continue to work with her and her new practice.

A good example of gate design in the Lake District.

In the foreseeable future our world will continue to experience increased life expectancy and increased populations of people with disabilities. So..there is no place for the ‘average’ person being perceived as young and without disabilities.

 

And yet,

'Inequalities are still being literally built into new places and planners and designers need to examine more closely the impact of their decisions…….

(Inclusion by Design - CABE 2008)

Who Should Attend the workshops

·         Students of landscape architecture and urban design,

·         Established design consultants wishing to improve their practice,

·         Public realm developers and contractors.

·         Organisations delivering services to the Public: local authorities, transport providers, the national trust, restaurants, entertainment providers, religious institutions, schools and retailers.

Why attend

 

• The relevance of empathetic design and how it leads to more intuitive outcomes and enhanced user experience.
• Key principles, aims and how to apply an empathetic  approach
• From shared knowledge gained from ‘real life experiences’.

To find out more about disability awareness workshops, please contact either Joe or Frances Carroll on:

·         T : +44 (0)1789 763878 or

·         E : email@rainbow1975.plus.com.

 

The 'Localism Agenda':

 

Lucy and Penny attended this WWIC (Women Working in Construction) event at Wolverhampton Science Park on 23^rd March. They reported a very good debate with speakers presenting strong cases for (Steve Quartermain - Chief Planning Officer for Communities and Local Government) and against the Localism Bill (Waheed Nazir - Director of Planning and Regeneration at Birmingham City Council and Louise Brooke-Smith - Director of Brooke Smith Planning (representing the private sector's view). 

1)  Chief Planning Officer for Communities and Local Government - Steve Quartermain

Key Points:

• Government’s vision is for greater democratic and local control for sustainable growth.
• The current planning system is centralised and too complex
• Although the government proposes the abolition of Regional Strategies they recognise that there is still need for strategic coordination for cross-boundary issues

• The Bill will introduce 3 changes to the Community Infrastructure Levy The government will introduce a new Major Infrastructure Planning Unit within PINS (PINS is the planning inspectorate- responsible for the processing of appeals against the decision of a LPA and also for holding inquiries into local development plans.)
• They will introduce new Neighbourhood Planning Tools

• Applicants that can use the new Neighbourhood Planning Tools will include Parish Councils and Neighbourhood Forums.
• Neighbourhoods will be based on Parish/Town Council Boundaries and Electoral Wards.  The defining will be community initiated with the LPA having a key role in designating these areas.
• The LPA'S role also will include confined decision making, fund examination, they will have a duty to support the neighbourhood groups but only if asked!  They will have a duty to adopt what the community asks for.
• The community plans will need to generally conform to strategic policies and proposals.

 Both the Director of Planning and Regeneration at Birmingham City Council and the director of Brooke Smith Planning put up a strong argument against the Localism Bill as below:

2)  Waheed Nazir - Director of Planning and Regeneration at Birmingham City Council

 The council has concerns about how cross regional issues will be addressed by the Localism Bill.

• How can we ensure that the Community groups are an accurate representation of the local community? At the moment the Localism Bill allows people outside a community to sit on the community forum and make decisions for a community they are not part of.
• Does the council have available capacity to support these neighbourhood groups? - Birmingham City Council has been forced to cut 120 jobs out of their original 400 - the resource simply may not be there.
• Communities are already consulted through Supplementary Development Plans - why do the community plans have to become Development Plan Documents?
• How are the councils to communicate to the community how neighbourhood plans are to work? Currently they do not have the resource to do this. 
• There is a risk that through confusion caused by the changes in the planning systems, developments will occur that do not have permission - this means more work for the council to then take legal action.

Birmingham City Council has experience of working closely with communities.  In the case of Moseley a lot of the development was community driven and it was a positive exercise.  However, the council learnt some valuable lessons from this, for example:

• It was challenging for the community to engage the Environment Agency and Transport providers, not fully understanding all the issues.
• There were tensions between strategic issues and local desires, for example, the residents didn’t like the main road running through Moseley and even though it is the main route into Birmingham and vital for the area's growth.
• The Localism Bill hasn't given any indication of how these tensions are to be managed.

Birmingham City Coucil have developed a very clear approach to the way they would like to see the city develop as Action Plans for 5 key areas within the city, called the ‘Big City Plan’.  It is with this plan that they managed to secure John Lewis, who are investing in the area around New Street station.  It is only with this clear plan and assurance of the areas growth that businesses will invest in an area.

3)  Louise Brooke-Smith, Director of Brooke-Smith Planning (representing the general private sector view)

Brooke-Smith Planning are advising clients that they will need to work with this new system, however:-

• The changes will likely have a negative impact on development as the construction industry hesitates because of the uncertainty.
• There is no interim guidance on how we are to make the transition to this new system
• The RSS currently gives us guidance on amounts of new housing needed - how will this be delivered now?
• The Localism Bill will probably increase the amount of planning by appeal.
• It is likely that a patchwork of plans will come forward with no comprehensive approach
• NIMBISM will be an issue
• Who will fund this new system?
• At present there doesn't seem to be a timescale given for communities to produce Neighbourhood Plans.
• Will communities be permissive and proactive in promoting development?
• It is likely that small and medium scale developments will become more common.
• At the moment the Bill will allow communities to play developers off each other in order to get the best financial gains for the community - very dodgy game to get in to.

Find it in Birmingham's 'Growing Green' 2011

Penny and Richard manned our stand at Find it in Birmingham's 'Growing Green' exhibition on Wednesday 23rd February at the Warwickshire Cricket Ground in Edgbaston.

The show was opened by Councillor Tim Huxtable, Birmingham Cabinet Member for Transport and Regeneration, followed by an inspiring speach delivered by the locally adored Professor Carl Chinn MBE. Carl's opening speach led deligates through a potted history of the Midlands from the inception of manufacturing at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, through to the current cultural and economic climate facing the region. He finished with motivating words of how the entropreneurs, professionals, contractors and manufacturers of the Midlands need to embrace the opportunities afforded by the rising demand for sustainable, green technologies, with a view to getting the Midlands back on the map as a leader in technological innovation.

Seminars continued throughout the day, delivered by Skanska, Crown Paints, Energy Saving Trust and RIBA to name but a few, whilst the Moore Environment stand was visited by an array of deligates including major contractors, architects, developers, corporate strategists and financial advisors. We informed each of the broad spectrum of services we provide from project inception and site selection, through the Environmental Impact Assessment and planning process to detailed design and site supervision of landscape and environmental works. 

Presentation material available on our stand illustrated our use of various 'green' technologies within the landscape such as Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), Green and Brown Roofs, Green Walls, and other innovative forms of Habitat Creation and earth shaping to maximise the environmental performance of any project, whether in an urban or rural setting.

For more information on the range of projects we have delivered, and the range of services we provide, visit our website at http://www.moore-environment.co.uk/, give us a call on 01675 466 877, or email mail@moore-environment.co.uk.