12 Sep 2024

Natural England hosted a webinar focused on the growing importance of green infrastructure in urban areas, highlighting new tools and policies to integrate nature into urban planning. Alan Law, Chief Officer for Strategy, introduced the event, discussing the government’s focus on balancing economic growth, housing development, and infrastructure investment with nature conservation. He emphasised that […]

12 Sep 2024

Research led by the University of Sheffield, in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, University of Exeter and University of Plymouth, shows Green Social Prescribing – supporting people to engage in nature-based activities – is an effective way of supporting people to improve their mental health More than 8,300 people with mental health needs took part […]

13 Mar 2024

The Guardian reports on research that looked at three London boroughs to value overall health benefits of active travel over 20 years at up to £4,800 per head. Policies to help people walk and cycle such as low-traffic neighbourhoods can create public health benefits as much as 100 times greater than the cost of the […]

03 May 2023

CIRIA has launched a new tool for calculating the benefits of green and blue infrastructure CIRIABEST (CIRIA’S Benefits Estimation Tool) The tool and guidance make assessing the benefits of blue-green infrastructure easier, without the need for full scale economic inputs. CIRIABEST was first produced and released as a spreadsheet tool (‘BeST’) in 2015 and was […]

08 Feb 2023

Over the past few months, the scandal of our sewage-polluted watercourses and seas in the UK has had widespread publicity. The public is rightly horrified that most of our British watercourses are not fit for swimming in and that untreated sewage spills have occurred so often – but not all of us are aware that […]

01 Feb 2023

Natural England has published the National Green Infrastructure Framework, a commitment in the government’s 25 Year Environment Plan. It is designed to help local planning authorities and developers in England meet requirements in the National Planning Policy Framework to consider green infrastructure in local plans and in new developments. The Green Infrastructure Framework comprises: Green […]

16 Jun 2022

Hybrid grey and green water infrastructures (HGGI) are combinations of grey, smart and green infrastructures, aimed at producing (climate) resilient water systems, reliably controlling peak flows and/or delivering clean water, sustaining environmental flows, and providing ecosystem, economic and social services. They can therefore be seen as supplying multiple benefits simultaneously. The implementation level (planning, designing, […]

20 Apr 2022

From https://www.fastcompany.com/90716670/this-16-acre-atlanta-park-was-built-to-flood Set in a low-lying area that’s home to a primarily Black community, the park can absorb 10 million gallons of stormwater.   BY NATE BERG 3 MINUTE READ In the Vine City neighborhood outside of downtown Atlanta, a few city blocks faced a persistent threat. Filled with the modest homes of the neighborhood’s primarily Black […]