Neighbourhoods Green is an English partnership initiative which works with social landlords and housing associations to highlight the importance of open and green space for residents and raise the overall quality of design and management with these groups.
The partnership was established in 2003 when Peabody Trust and Notting Hill Housing Group held a conference which identified the need to raise the profile of the green and open spaces owned and managed by social landlords. [1] The scheme attracted praise from the then Minister for parks and green spaces Yvette Cooper [2]
Since 2003 the partnership has expanded to include National Housing Federation, Groundwork, The Wildlife Trusts, Landscape Institute, Green Flag Award, Royal Horticultural Society, Natural England and CABE. [3] It is overseen by a steering group which includes representatives from Circle Housing Group, Great Places Housing Group, Helena Homes, London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, Medina Housing, New Charter Housing Trust, Notting Hill Housing, Peabody Trust, Places for People, Regenda Group and Wakefield & District Housing. [4]
Neighbourhoods Green has three main areas of emphasis. It produces best practice guidance, highlighting the contribution parks, gardens and play areas make to the quality of life for residents – including the mitigation of climate change, promotion of biodiversity and aesthetic qualities. [5] It also generates a number of case studies from housing associations and community groups and offers training for landlords, residents and partners on areas such as playspace, green infrastructure and growing food. [6]
In 2011, working in conjunction with University of Sheffield and the National Housing Federation, Neighbourhoods Green produced Greener Neighbourhoods a best practice guide to managing green space for social housing. Its ten principles [7] for housing green space were:
During 2013/14 Neighbourhoods Green will be working with Keep Britain Tidy to support the expansion of the Green Flag Award into the social housing sector. [8]
Thamesmead is an area of south-east London, England, straddling the border between the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the London Borough of Bexley. It is located 11 miles (18 km) east of Charing Cross, north-east of Woolwich and west of Erith. It mainly consists of social housing built from the mid-1960s onwards on former marshland on the south bank of the River Thames.
The Wildlife Trusts, the trading name of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, is an organisation made up of 46 local Wildlife Trusts in the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and Alderney. The Wildlife Trusts, between them, look after more than 2,300 nature reserves, covering around 98,500 hectares. As of 2020, the Trusts have a combined membership of over 870,000 members.
In Ireland and the United Kingdom, housing associations are private, non-profit organisations that provide low-cost "social housing" for people in need of a home. Any budget surplus is used to maintain existing housing and to help finance new homes and it cannot be used for personal benefit of directors or shareholders. Although independent, they are regulated by the state and commonly receive public funding. They are now the United Kingdom's major providers of new housing for rent, while many also run shared ownership schemes to help those who cannot afford to buy a home outright.
Castle Vale is a housing estate located between Erdington, Minworth and Castle Bromwich. Currently Castle Vale makes up the Castle Vale Ward of Birmingham City Council which is part of Erdington constituency, 6 miles (9 km) northeast of Birmingham city centre in England. The area has an approximate population of 10,000 people and has a distinctly modern residential character stemming from its history as a postwar overspill estate.
Natural England is a non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. It is responsible for ensuring that England's natural environment, including its land, flora and fauna, freshwater and marine environments, geology and soils, are protected and improved. It also has a responsibility to help people enjoy, understand and access the natural environment.
The Peabody Trust was founded in 1862 as the Peabody Donation Fund and now brands itself simply as Peabody.
The term "sustainable communities" has various definitions, but in essence refers to communities planned, built, or modified to promote sustainable living. Sustainable communities tend to focus on environmental and economic sustainability, urban infrastructure, social equity, and municipal government. The term is sometimes used synonymously with "green cities," "eco-communities," "livable cities" and "sustainable cities."
A sustainable city, eco-city, or green city is a city designed with consideration for the social, economic, and environmental impact, as well as a resilient habitat for existing populations. This is done in a way that does not compromise the ability of future generations to experience the same. The UN Sustainable Development Goal 11 defines sustainable cities as those that are dedicated to achieving green sustainability, social sustainability and economic sustainability. In accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goal 11, a sustainable city is defined as one that is dedicated to achieving green, social, and economic sustainability. They are committed to this objective by facilitating opportunities for all through a design that prioritizes inclusivity as well as maintaining a sustainable economic growth. Furthermore, the objective is to minimize the inputs of energy, water, and food, and to drastically reduce waste, as well as the outputs of heat, air pollution. Richard Register, a visual artist, first coined the term ecocity in his 1987 book Ecocity Berkeley: Building Cities for a Healthy Future, where he offers innovative city planning solutions that would work anywhere. Other leading figures who envisioned sustainable cities are architect Paul F Downton, who later founded the company Ecopolis Pty Ltd, as well as authors Timothy Beatley and Steffen Lehmann, who have written extensively on the subject. The field of industrial ecology is sometimes used in planning these cities.
Poplar HARCA is a housing association in London, England. It is the landlord of about 9,000 homes in the East London area, a quarter of which have been sold leasehold; the remainder are let on assured tenancies at subsidised rent levels.
Span Developments Limited was a British property development company formed in the late 1950s by Geoffrey Townsend working in long and close partnership with Eric Lyons as consultant architect. During its most successful period in the 1960s, Span built over 2,000 homes in London, Surrey, Kent and East Sussex – mainly two- and three-bedroom single-family homes and apartment buildings.
Green infrastructure or blue-green infrastructure refers to a network that provides the “ingredients” for solving urban and climatic challenges by building with nature. The main components of this approach include stormwater management, climate adaptation, the reduction of heat stress, increasing biodiversity, food production, better air quality, sustainable energy production, clean water, and healthy soils, as well as more anthropocentric functions, such as increased quality of life through recreation and the provision of shade and shelter in and around towns and cities. Green infrastructure also serves to provide an ecological framework for social, economic, and environmental health of the surroundings. More recently scholars and activists have also called for green infrastructure that promotes social inclusion and equity rather than reinforcing pre-existing structures of unequal access to nature-based services.
The Green Flag Award is an international accreditation given to publicly accessible parks and open spaces, managed under licence from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities, a UK Government department, by Keep Britain Tidy, who also administers the scheme in England.
Groundwork UK is an environmental organisation in the United Kingdom. It is based in Birmingham and is a registered charity under English law.
Countryside Partnerships plc, formerly Countryside Properties plc, is a UK housebuilding and urban regeneration company, operating mainly in London and the South East of England, but with a presence in the North West of England. Until 2022, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.
CALIFORNIA SUSTAINABILITY ALLIANCE
Building for Life, Building for Life 12, Adeliladu am Oes 12 Cymru and Building for a Healthy Life are design tools for improving the quality of new homes and neighbourhoods used across England and Wales. The current version in use in England is Building for a Healthy Life .
UK Community Foundations (UKCF) is a registered charity that leads a movement of community foundations committed to positive social change in the UK through the development of “community philanthropy”. Community philanthropy involves people from all parts of a community working together locally to use the financial and other resources available to them to improve others’ lives.
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