The enterprise Centre at the University of East Anglia is the largest exterior thatched building in Europe, and was built using wood from nearby Thetford Forest. Conceived by the Adapt Low Carbon Group, designed by sustainable architects Architype and built by Morgan Sindall, all new materials were sustainably sourced with a minimum carbon footprint. To…
Since 2009 when Statoil installed the first full scale floating wind turbine in the North Sea it has generated more than 32GWh of electricity, and proved that it is possible to capture wind energy from deep water environments up to 700m, far beyond the reach of traditional seabed-mounted turbines. Now, in partnership with Masdar, the…
The London Blackfriars Novotel has been ranked in the top 10% of sustainable commercial buildings in the UK for its ‘outstanding’ eco-friendly policies by BREEAM (The Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method). The hotel has been given an ‘excellent’ rating for its environmental performance and is aiming to change the mindset of guests so that…
The London Healthy Urban Development Unit is a team of town planners working to maximise the opportunities for aligning the health and planning agendas. The unit engages planners and health professionals to integrate health considerations into planning policy decisions and promote healthy urban development. HUDU has developed tools and guidance to assess the health impacts…
The Medway Valley Landscape Enhancement Plan offers guidance for change along the Medway Valley within Maidstone Borough. This report has been developed through the Kent Environment Strategy (Strategic Landscape Enhancement Plan 2015) ; a partnership of organisations working together to deliver actions for the benefit of Kent’s Environment. The Medway Valley Landscape Enhancement Plan offers…
The River Len is a small and heavily urbanised tributary of the River Medway in Maidstone. In autumn 2000 the Len had flooded commercial and residential property in Maidstone town centre. In 2002 the acquisition of 2.5 hectares of the River Len corridor was negotiated by Maidstone Council as environmental mitigation for a new supermarket…
Bristol has a ?Healthy Urban Team? that includes a dedicated health and planning lead, Stephen Hewitt, who is located in the Planning Department and funded by public health. They are also able to draw on input from the WHO collaborating centre for healthy urban environments at the University of the West of England. The 2012…
In South Cambridge health impact assessment (HIA) is a requirement for every major development. Through the HIA process health professionals from the county council Public Health Team and the Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) are giving the Local Planning Authority a steer on the public health implications of new developments. The starting point was concerns raised…