Dr Gemma Jerome FLI, Director, Building with Nature
In September 2022, I attended the Beth Chatto Symposium titled ‘Rewilding the Mind’. The event brought together a multi-disciplinary panel of speakers to discuss the alternatives to designing and managing the public realm in more sustainable ways, in light of the ecological, climate and public health crises. One of the keynote sessions was led by Dr Wei Yang, Chairman and founder of Wei Yang and Partners who specialise in masterplanning, urban design and mixed-use projects. Dr Yang is a lead figure in researching, promoting and implementing 21st Century Garden City, green and low-carbon development approaches worldwide. It was the vision set out in her presentation at the Beth Chatto Symposium that inspired me to write this piece for the Built Environment Networking event, ‘Garden Communities and Net Towns Development Conference’.
In many ways, to appreciate a 21st Century vision for the Garden City, we need to return to the original vision of Garden Cities, espoused by Sir Ebenezer Howard. Dr Yang’s session encouraged us to appreciate that the vision put forward by Howard (1850-1928) is synonymous with the foundation of the modern planning movement and encompasses the spirit of planning, captured in a direct quote from Howard: “I realised, as never before, the splendid possibilities of a new civilisation based on service to the community and not on self-interest, at present the dominant motive. Then I determined to take such a part as I could, however small it might be, in helping to bring a new civilisation into being”.
As we face unprecedented challenges spanning the economy, society and the environment, it may be argued that the resurgence of the Garden Community as a strategic response to the need for more sustainable, nature-positive development that delivers for human health and wellbeing. Yang picks up this theme and suggests that the essence of a Garden City is to create a sustainable economic model for development, and a sustainable model for social communities. Furthermore, the key principles of Garden Communities include land value capture, community governance, and long-term stewardship.
In many ways, public health and wellbeing are the foundations of the planning profession. It is this angle that I wish to expand on, specifically reflecting on the capacity of the Garden Community model to deliver green infrastructure as a critical infrastructure for people’s health and wellbeing, and the principal delivery driver to unlock the potential for Garden Communities to deliver outcomes for people and wildlife, in line with legislation, policy and good industry practice.
Green infrastructure describes the natural and semi-natural assets that make up the ecosystems in and around our urban spaces. From implementing new street trees and Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) through to protecting and enhancing larger-scale assets such as existing woodland and grassland, green infrastructure is valued for the services it delivers to protect human health, the economy and the wider environment. New policy drivers including Biodiversity Net Gain and Net Zero Carbon have increased pressure on those responsible for masterplanning new Garden Communities to find ways to make space for nature in new development, reflecting emergent thinking that climate and biodiversity should be thought of as coupled systems that can be positively impacted by placemaking approaches that integrate nature-based solutions as a priority mechanism for meeting the challenges of the 21st Century. This reflects the clear message from the IPCC this year: “Spatial planning needs the largest systematic changes as a key climate change adaptation option” (IPCC, 2022)
Building with Nature offers an industry-tested framework of quality standards to support the delivery of green infrastructure in Garden Communities and New Towns, and an accreditation system to offer key stakeholders including local authorities an external verification of quality from design and planning stages, through to implementation and long-term stewardship. The Building with Nature Standards Framework has already been used to support the delivery of Garden Communities across the UK, and we have produced case studies outlining the benefits of using this approach at The Steadings in Gloucestershire, and Langarth Garden Village in Cornwall, who both received a Building with Nature Design Award for their schemes at Masterplan stage. Subsequent phases of each development will be eligible for a Building with Nature Full Award, which includes a post-construction check, celebrating the delivery and long-term stewardship of green infrastructure.
Each of these strategic allocations faced very different development drivers, however in both cases the design quality standards were set by the local authority, and there were clear expectations that each scheme will provide local green infrastructure solutions that support a strategic approach to placemaking, and practicably and sustainably respond to the Council’s declarations of a climate emergency, and commitment to deliver Biodiversity Net Gain to address the nature crisis through nature recovery. By embedding the Building with Nature Standards into the green infrastructure designs, each development team was able to demonstrate that their scheme is on track to deliver positive outcomes for people and wildlife, in both cases responding to the council’s policy commitments around climate, wellbeing, water and wildlife.
As local authorities get ready to respond to the National Model Design Code with local design guidance, Building with Nature can also offer guidance on what design characteristics will promote better placemaking for people and wildlife, protecting and enhancing the historic and natural heritage that an area is valued for, and promising a new settlement that delivers climate resilience, for both the built form and natural assets, sustainable water management, wildlife enhancement, and guarantees these benefits in the long-term. Strategic policy documents can also apply the Building with Nature Standards Framework and apply for accreditation. The Cornwall Design Guide was awarded a Building with Nature Policy Award and set the design parameters for Langarth Garden Village.
Garden Communities must work in a complex 21st century context. There is an urgent need for placemaking and place-keeping approaches that balance the needs of three key groups: stakeholders who are responsible for meeting housing need (e.g. local authorities), those who bring the financial and technical expertise to deliver new places (e.g. master developer), and those who will be responsible for the governance and management of new places and their natural assets in the long-term (e.g. Community Land Trust).
Building with Nature offers a new climate and nature-positive approach to placemaking which can be easily, and intuitively adopted to the Garden Communities and New Town Development model. By offering industry with a ‘how-to guide’ for prioritising nature-based solutions as critical infrastructure , supporting local authorities with policy guidance, and offering master developers with accreditation options that reduce planning uncertainty, and demonstrate the value of their schemes to both investors and customers, we are refreshing and updating the ground-breaking vision set out by Ebenezer Howard more than a century ago in his seminal text ‘Garden Cities of Tomorrow’ (Howard, 1898). Howard’s model for the Garden City put human health at the heart of placemaking, which is echoed in the vision set out by Dr Wei Yang where an integrated plan-making and placemaking process can redefine ‘what good looks like’ e.g. creating friendly, walkable neighbourhoods.
A century on, the challenges facing society are strangely familiar – public health crisis, housing shortage, poor access to nature especially for the most disadvantaged in society. But the requirements set out in new environmental legislation and policy to reverse the decline in biodiversity and deliver Net Zero development, in response to the nature and climate emergencies, make these challenges even more complex. As such, there has never been a more important time to refresh the Garden City vision.
By creating a conversation across technical specialists and joined up working to secure a Building with Nature Accreditation, developers can offer assurance that their scheme will provide local green infrastructure solutions that support a strategic approach to placemaking, and practicably and sustainably respond to the local Council’s declarations of a climate emergency, and commitment to deliver Biodiversity Net Gain to address the nature crisis through nature recovery.
At Building with Nature we believe that by embedding green infrastructure quality standards into the masterplanning process for Garden Communities and New Town Development, we will begin to balance the needs of people and wildlife more effectively and create a new generation of development that looks and feels like the Garden Cities of Tomorrow, designed for the people, and the challenges and opportunities, of today.
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