Sustainable Voice Newsletter - April 2009

sustainable voice a newsletter of the Sustainable Communities Excellence Network

Issue 11 April 2009 This bi-monthly newsletter is designed to regularly update the Sustainable Communities Excellence Network and stakeholders with current events and news of note Submissions of articles and/or photos or images with captions and photo credit are due to the Network Development th Officer by 15 April for the May 2009 issue. Submissions by email only to: [email protected]

A large print version of this newsletter is available upon request.

IGNITE appoints key leads for new Regional Design Review service North East England is adding to its strong portfolio of activities to strengthen place making standards with the creation of a Regional Design Review and Enabling Service. The new service – which will be managed by IGNITE, the Regional Centre of Excellence for Sustainable Communities – has just made key appointments to lead the new service which will go live in May.

ARUPs will provide the service secretariat and John Devlin, formerly director of development and environment at Gateshead Council, will chair the new service. John will head a design review panel of 28 experts. One North East – which funds IGNITE – will be making it a condition that all appropriate development schemes seeking funding from the

Agency will be required to have passed through the design review process. For further information on the Regional Design Review and Enabling Service, please contact Kirsteen Thomson, lead on IGNITE and Sustainable Development Manager at One North East, on Tel: 0191 229 6424 or email: kirsteen.thomson@onenor theast.co.uk

Integreat Yorkshire latest RCE to support National Empowerment Integreat Yorkshire is the latest RCE to support The National Empowerment Partnership in its region. Two RCEs – Creating Excellence in the South West and Inspire East in the East of England – are already the regional leads for empowerment partnerships in the region. Now Integreat Yorkshire is assisting the Communities & Organisations Growth and Support (COGS) organisation, the regional lead in Yorkshire and Humber, to deliver a learning programme about building sustainable

communities. Commissioned by the Homes and Communities Academy, the programme aims to raise awareness and share practice in relation to sustainable communities and will focus on the role of community development workers and their relationship to others working at community level. The programme in the Yorkshire and Humber Region took place in Wakefield on 30 and 31 March, 27 and will continue on 28 April 2009.

Participants are expected to carry out a short piece of research to analyse development in their own or another community in between these blocks. Further information can be found by visiting http://www.cogs.uk.net. Funded by Communities and Local Government (CLG), The National Partnership Empowerment (NEP) is a national partnership set up to improve the quality, coordination and evidence of empowerment across England.

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RegenWM succeeds with West Midlands’ first Design Fair RegenWM facilitated the first West Midlands Design Fair in Birmingham on 25th February, an event which showcased the best in design and built environment services and partnerships. RegenWM facilitated the first West Midlands Design Fair, which took place in Birmingham on 25thFebruary. The event brought together 33 organisations to make connections with others in the field, to benchmark against others, to stay informed and to do business.

Creating Excellence was launched in 2004. It is an independent company limited by guarantee and governed by its own Board. Its mission it to build the skills and knowledge of people working for sustainable communities by providing improved learning opportunities for everyone through networking, events, website and publications.

The Fair promoted design quality in the region. RegenWM, part of DEWM (Designed Environment West Midlands – a partnership of design organisations in the West Midlands) hosted a wide mix of organisations from across the sector and created an upbeat and vibrant space for informal networking. The event was a great success – 33 organisations exhibited and over 200 people attended. Exhibitors

included Transforming Telford, Play England, Sustrans, HCA, RIBA and various architects practices, Sanctuary Group, West Midlands Architecture Centres – MADE and UVNS, Birmingham City Council, Trigram Properties and Birmingham City University School of Architecture. The space was animated with a montage of regional images, supplied by exhibitors, a film of the Birmingham cityscape routes and landscapes, static displays from Matthew Boulton College and Birmingham City University, jugglers and entertainers and a networking café. The current operating environment has not

stopped calls for design quality to remain on the regional agenda and product quality and market differentiation have the potential to mark out activity in an otherwise difficult market. The Design Fair enabled organisations and individuals to make connections with others in the field, to benchmark against others, to stay informed and to do business. There has been a steady stream of positive feedback following the event. DEWM partners are now considering staging another Design Fair in Spring 2010. For more information and to view our online gallery from the Fair, visit the RegenWM website at: http://www.regenwm.org.

Creating Excellence offers Building for Life Accredited Assessor Training Creating Excellence is now acting as partner to CABE (the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment) in the South West to promote and deliver specific training on the adoption and use of the Building for Life standard. From 2009 local authorities must include Building for Life assessments as part of their Annual Monitoring Report. Growth Points should identify how Building for Life will be incorporated into their

growth plans. Full information regarding the Building for Life standard can be found at http://www.buildingforlife.o rg.

arrange further courses in May 2009. For further information on these workshops please contact Amanda.hamley@creating excellence.org.uk.

Creating Excellence is making provision to train officers who might act as accredited assessors on behalf of local authorities. Working closely with CABE, they have already held two successful training workshops for prospective Building for Life assessors in February in Bristol and Plymouth. They are now looking to

Please note that due to the degree of professional expertise required in undertaking a Building for Life assessment candidate assessors should have a previous qualification in Architecture, Urban Design, Landscape Design, Planning or similar.

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Homes and Communities Academy update Debate Place HCA Academy’s online Debate Place has been set up to enable crosssector practitioners to share their views on key areas impacting their work. The first debate ran in February and generated over 3000 hits and a healthy debate on delivering low carbon communities. Strong themes emerged ranging from policy implications, the importance of changing behaviour, to questioning costs and calling for community based solutions. Click on the link for the full debate: http://tiny.cc/yIlkI Key messages from the debate included: 1. We need to think carefully about the implications of locating new developments away from existing infrastructure. There was a strong consensus that we should instead focus on improving and increasing densities in existing towns and cities.

2. Subsidies should be increased and made available to enable home-owners to make their existing homes more energy efficient, and for home-owners and developers to install the most cost effective and appropriate microrenewables. 3. More focus and resource needs to be put into community engagement and effective long-term management of new places to enable thriving communities. 4. European models for housing, such as cohousing, should be considered as a part of UK delivery models. 5. There should be more public and professional awareness of the importance of great design and place making. The full report is available on line http://www.hcaacademy.c o.uk/node/490

Coming Soon For 3 weeks in April, the HCA Academy will host the second in the series of on line debates with the title ‘In the midst of a recession how can we develop cohesive communities?’. View a series of films of practitioners in the field, down load reports and view case studies on show case here: http://showcase.hcaacade my.co.uk Future Communities The Young Foundation, sponsored by HCA, IDeA and CIH, has developed a new website aimed at everyone involved in developing the successful sustainable communities of the future. futurecommunities.net focuses on community participation and place management. It explores how developments can become socially, economically and environmentally sustainable, building in resident involvement and engagement from the start.

Regeneration East Midlands project Ep2 website goes live Hosted by Regeneration East Midlands, the Enterprising People, Enterprising Places (Ep2) website is now up and running. Ep2 is a new skills programme for people that work or live in disadvantaged areas in the East Midlands and who are committed to regeneration. The Ep2

programme is managed by Regeneration East Midlands and funded through the East Midlands Development Agency. The website – www.ep2online.org – highlights the Ep2 programme, outlines the policy behind it and offers a downloadable Ep2

library, among other tools. Ep2 is unique because it is about releasing the capacity within communities to carry out regeneration for themselves. The programme consists of a series of innovative tools and techniques for regeneration practitioners.

From the HCA website, a proposed street scene at the second Carbon Challenge site in Peterborough. Copyright Browne Smith Baker, Morris Homes Ltd and Gentoo Homes, 2008

The East Midlands’ Urban Partnership Group (UPG) is holding an Addressing City Flight event in Leicester on 19th May as part of the wider UPG initiative facilitated by Regeneration East Midlands. UPG Coordinator Susan Hallsworth is offering a limited number of free places to RCE staff – emails of interest to [email protected] o.uk. Confirmed speakers include Richard Simmons from CABE and themes include quality of housing, local services and amenities and raising the profile of urban living. http://www.urbanpartners hipgroup.org.uk/

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Design for London to manage Great Spaces

Design for London is a small, flexible team which maximises its influence by forging partnerships with relevant bodies in the design and development sectors in London. It welcomes the active participation of organisations and individuals who are working to make London a better place in which to live, work and visit.

Urban Design London (UDL) helps all London authorities achieve betterdesigned environments through support, training and networking opportunities. UDL is supported by London Councils, Transport for London (TfL), London Development Agency (LDA), and the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE).

The Mayor of London Boris Johnson recently announced plans for a ‘Great Spaces’ initiative which will champion existing public spaces that currently have poor access or are unwelcoming and unattractive. Design for London will set up, administer and manage the Great Spaces initiative. The aim is to help transform some of the city’s better as well as lesser known streets, squares, parks and riverside walks into places

Londoners and visitors will want to use and enjoy. Projects at any stage of their development can be submitted by London boroughs for assessment by the Mayor’s design panel, led by Deputy Mayor for Planning and Policy Simon Milton. Successful projects will be adopted and accredited as a Mayor’s ‘Great Space’ and benefit from top quality, specialist advice from Design for London, which advises the Mayor on ensuring design excellence in all projects that are commissioned or funded by the GLA Group.

Projects that have been developed as part of other public space initiatives will be welcomed by the panel and can be endorsed as exemplary public realm projects, and supported by the programme on the same basis as any project, including those supported through other Mayoral initiatives like the Priority Parks Programme, Street Trees Initiative and Green Grid and those projects that have been part of the previous Mayor’s 100 Public Spaces programme.

Urban Design London unveils 2009-10 training programme Urban Design London has unveiled its brand new 2009-10 training programme, which is now available for download by visiting their website here: www.urbandesignlondon.c om. It includes around 80 separate sessions including:  Monthly guided site visits to exemplar schemes  A one day introduction to urban design course  12 different streets and planning based foundation sessions  8 new workshops looking at key design

tools and skills  8 new masterclasses looking at tricky but vital important design issues The brochure lists all events they are running from April 2009 to March 2010. UDL offers support to London authorities, offering significant training, but also facilitating a network of interested officers and Design Champion Councillors. They are increasingly seeing non authority people attending their events and getting

involved in their network. UDL is funded and managed by London Councils, Transport for London, the London Development Agency and CABE. UDL also runs a subscription service for Boroughs where each authority has a set number of pre paid places. General attendees can book online through UDL website at www.urbandesignlondon.c om. Places may be available for RCE staff – send an e-mail of interest to Esther Kurland: esther.kurland@urbandesi gnlondon.com

Michaela Galler joins Integreat Yorkshire Michaela Galler has joined the Integreat team as PA to the Programme Director. Michaela brings a wide range of

experience from both the private and public sector, previously working in the Economic Inclusion Director’s office at

Yorkshire Forward and as a Sales Manager in the Automotive sector, travelling regularly to Germany to visit clients.

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Places Matter! appoints North West design leaders Places Matter! the Architecture and Built Environment Centre for the Northwest has brought on new team members to take its programme of activities forward to 2012. Following a recruitment drive in early 2009, Places Matter! has brought new expertise into its Northwest Design Review Panel including a new Chair, appointed a full time Education Manager and recruited a Chair for the Places Matter! Advisory Group. Martin Stockley joins Places Matter! as Chair of the

Northwest Design Review Panel, a free and impartial service for local authorities, developers and designers. Martin also sits on the MADE (West Midlands) Design Review panel and before becoming Chair was a member of the Northwest Design Review Panel from its creation in 2007. The new panel represents a variety of expertise from the fields of urban design, architecture, sustainable design, planning, landscape architecture and many other disciplines.

The Places Matter! Education programme will be taken forward by Jo Harrop, who joins the team as Education Manager from Wigan Council where she has been acting as Programme Manager for the Greenheart Regional Park Programme. Through Places Matter! Education Jo will provide a strategic focus and advocate for good quality design amongst a wider audience with an emphasis on 14 – 19 year olds.

Inspire East busy with Funding East event, Winter School, Empowerment road shows Funding East holds event - A Funding East event was held in Cambridge on Tuesday 3 March. Topics covered included funding news from the Church Urban Fund and Awards for All, information and advice on soft outcomes from SOUL Record research, details of Inspire East’s enabling service and a guide to Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs). There was also a chance to discuss the implications of the current economic climate on funding. Community Development Network arrives in Norwich -The Community Development Network gathered in

Norwich on Tuesday 17 March. In addition to the usual networking opportunities there was also a chance to look at Participatory Budgeting and to discover the origins of our venue, The Kings Centre through a tour of the building. Empowerment Roadshows - The Regional Empowerment Partnership held a series of one day empowerment roadshows in March to demystify the empowerment white paper and provide an insight into empowerment activity in the region. These events

were attended by Local Authority officers and members, LSP partners and the voluntary and community sector. View presentations from Inspire East’s Winter School - Inspire East held their most successful Winter School yet, selling out completely despite the snow. View all the presentations by clicking the link here: http://tiny.cc/C3zzw

Since its creation in 2007 Places Matter! has proved a resounding success. With further funding until 2012 the team look forward to driving an innovative and expanding programme of built environment activities in the region.

Biodiversity boost for South East Ten organisations, including SEEDA, Natural England, the National Trust and the Forestry Commission have signed up to the South East England Biodiversity Forum’s Strategy to improve the region’s biodiversity. The aim is to achieve an overarching approach to the region’s ecosystem to help reduce the cost of managing flooding and pollution as well as contributing to improved health and well being.

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South East Excellence facilitates crosscutting CPD for built environment

The Scottish Centre for Regeneration runs three cross-Government learning networks that respond to needs expressed by people and organisations working in regeneration: Community Regeneration; Tackling Poverty Town Centres and Local High Streets; and Mixed and Sustainable Communities. These networks give practical help to those working at a local level and connect people from across Scotland.

The RegenWM team planted 113 trees in The National Forest, one for each of the RegenWM Prizes 2008 entries. The National Forest is a forest in the making, covering 200 square miles of central England across parts of Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire.

South East Excellence is currently working with the Construction Industry Council South East (CIC SE) to take a closer look at what the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) expectations are for the members of the

professional organisations such as the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), the Royal Institute of Town Planners (RTPI) and the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). The work will also identify

where there are gaps in CPD provision in order to develop the skills required to address the current economic climate and eventual upturn.

Scottish Centre for Regeneration launches new learning networks The web portal of the Scottish Centre for Regeneration initiative Partners in Regeneration www.partnersinregenerati on.com - lets people and organisations easily access evidence, expertise and excellence in regeneration. Its resources - including research, tools and case studies - help address key regeneration issues.

and Sustainable Communities. These three networks help regeneration practitioners learn from other people facing the same problems, network online and hear about events and programmes.

have an interest in regeneration but come from different sectors and disciplines.

The Scottish Centre for Regeneration helps to achieve Scottish Government’s Purpose, Targets and National The initiative is managed Outcomes through by the Scottish Centre for supporting public, private Regeneration, part of and voluntary sector Scottish Government, in delivery partners to partnership with other become more effective at The initiative’s Learning regeneration regeneration. Visit the Networks include organisations in Scotland. centre’s website: Community Regeneration; It has been developed http://www.scotland.gov.u Tackling Poverty with the organisations that k/Topics/BuiltEnvironment/regeneration/ Town Centres and Local make up the Partners in High Streets; and Mixed Regeneration network. All pir/about

RegenWM team plants 113 trees in The National Forest for 2009 Prizewinners On 24th March the RegenWM team planted 113 trees in The National Forest, one for each of the RegenWM Prizes 2008 entries. This will be the fourth year that RegenWM has planted trees as part of the Prizes process – to support The National Forest project (a previous RegenWM Prizes winner).

The RegenWM Prizes celebrate the success of a wide variety of regeneration projects across the West Midlands. The prizes programme depends on the enthusiasm and dedication of the entrants. Through the Prizes RegenWM recognise and share the fantastic ideas

that are today being turned into regeneration outcomes for the region. Full details and case studies on the 2008 Prizes winners are on the RegenWM website – www.regenwm.org.

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RCEs deemed ‘impressive’ and ‘excellent’ in CABE light touch review Creating Excellence and RegenWM received positive mention in a light touch review undertaken by The Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE) between May and July 2008. The review was a joint exercise between DCMS, CLG and CABE. The reviewers were asked to consider four areas:  Alignment;  Capability and impact;  Focus, effectiveness and efficiency; and  Departmental and other key relationships. Regarding CABE’s work at a regional level, the review makes positive mention of two Regional Centres of Excellence – Creating Excellence and RegenWM, stating: “Where the RDA and other bodies active in a region have joined in

partnership with CABE the results have been impressive. Design South West, a strategic alliance of all the key organisations and agencies in the region that is focused on influencing the quality of the built environment, is jointly funded by Creating Excellence (the regional centre for sustainable communities) and CABE.” Later it states: “In the West Midlands – a more compact and urbanised region than the South West – excellent partnerships have been built with the key agencies Advantage West Midlands (the RDA), MADE (the regional architecture centre) and RegenWM which is working to improve regeneration skills and encourage the pursuit of excellence in order to secure a sustainable future the region.”

The clear message of the review is that CABE has made and continues to make a real difference to the quality of places and buildings in England. The reviewers made five recommendations including: -That the sponsor departments work with CABE to more actively and methodically engage in the planning system through the new regional structure - That CABE undertakes a review of its learning and dissemination strategy, to make sure that it utilises its experience of the last 9 years to drive the design quality agenda forward - That CABE makes more explicit how it assesses the effectiveness of its activities Find the full review here: http://www.cep.culture.gov .uk/images/publications/C ABE_LTR.pdf

RCE assists District Council’s ‘innovative’ regeneration, as reviewed by the IDeA North West Leicestershire District Council has the potential to be one of the best in the country, according to an independent review by the Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA). The East Midlands Design Review Panel, managed by Opun architecture centre at Regeneration East Midlands, has helped the council to get there.

it was assessed by the Audit Commission. A report written by the IDeA has cited the innovative progress in vision and leadership made by the North West Leicestershire District Council, and in particular its progress in regenerating Coalville.

Opun, the East Midlands Architecture Centre at Regeneration East Midlands, has played a strong role in supporting the authority through the The IDeA review, which expertise of its Regional took place at the end of Design Review Panel. 2008, concluded that the Kate Lockhart, East Council has made real progress since 2004 when Midlands Design Review

Design South West, hosted by Creating Excellence, and RegenWM were recently cited in a light touch review of the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment (CABE). Positive statements indicate the impressive results of Design South West and the excellent partnerships in the West Midlands including RegenWM.

Panel Manager commented: “North West Leicestershire District Council is a proactive authority, keen to improve the physical environment for people who live and work in the district by setting high design standards. They have used the design review process to its full potential, bringing schemes to review and taking advantage of the opportunity for staff to observe at other review meetings, leading to more effective pre-application discussions.”

Regeneration East Midlands is helping the North West Leicestershire District Council to regenerate Coalville (pictured) through its Architecture Centre, Opun, which runs the East Midlands Design Review Panel. The Improvement and Development Agency (IDeA) recently cited the Council’s innovative progress in regenerating Coalville in their Peer District Challenge. Photo copyright Jim Cartwright, 0116 279 6502

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Issue 11 April 2009

A monthly newsletter of the Sustainable Communities Excellence Network. Submissions deadline for the May 2009 issue: 15th April. Send to: [email protected]

Integreat Yorkshire introduces the Great Briefs Series Integreat Yorkshire is introducing The Great Briefs series to stimulate debate and discussion about the economic and social issues that are impacting on our communities and the region. Each month, they will publish a Great Brief and follow it up with a lively networking event, which will unpack the key challenges and provide a

forum for open discussion and debate across a number of policy and delivery topics.

and Regeneration. The briefing provides a summary of the main conclusions of this report with some commentary on The first Great Brief event what the Sub National focuses on economic Review will mean for policy with an overview of organisations in Yorkshire the recent policy and Humber. The free-ofpublication, which outlines charge session will be the Government’s held on 15th April in response to the Leeds at the Round consultation on the Foundry Media Centre Review of Sub-National from 3.20 - 5.30pm. To Economic Development book call 0113 394 9681.

South East Excellence makes regional push for good design A two day workshop to start the process of developing a design action plan for the Growth Point in the Partnership for Urban South Hampshire Area (PUSH) took place in February. It hosted a range of international and national speakers including Stirling Prize winner Keith Bradley for Accordia from Feilden Clegg Bradley and Kobus Mentz from Urbanisms+ in New Zealand, as well as having an expert panel (including representatives from CABE, ATLAS, PAS and SEEDA) to offer advice and guidance to the PUSH partners throughout the process.

A design capacity audit carried out before the workshop revealed that most of the 11 local authorities in the PUSH area have some design capacity, although this is often development control focused and is not consistent across all authorities. As CABE’s Sarah Allan says ‘we are trying to develop a diagnostic approach so that design can play its part in helping to manage the Growth agenda. This workshop and the research preceding it will help the local authorities to provide greater leadership in delivering high levels of growth’.

Initial feedback from the seminar reports a strong determination between the authorities to investigate resources sharing, as well as trying to ensure common principles in Local Development Frameworks. Simon Eden, lead Chief Executive for the Quality Places Delivery Panel, said ‘I am really encouraged by the shared commitment to excellent design in our local authorities. By working together we can make a real difference for our communities’.

Busy Inspire East Regional Design Review reviews Eco Community The Inspire East Regional Design Review Panel recently undertook a review of the proposed Rackheath Eco Community which is being promoted in the CLG Eco Towns initiative. The review took place on the 26th February, over the course of a whole day, and included a site visit and in-depth

presentations by the developers, Building Partnerships and Barratt Homes, the design team, lead by David Thompson of LSI Architects, as well as presentations from Broadland District Council and Norfolk County Council. The day facilitated interesting and thought provoking debate and highlighted a comprehensive approach

to sustainable development. A report will be issued in the next few weeks to the developer and planning authorities. Spring proved a busy time for the design review service, with an additional panel day being put on in March in order to meet demand and enabling 8 schemes to be reviewed altogether.