Planning and Infrastructure in England

At the heart of the CLUES project are the numerous urban initatives occuring that are creating a new urban energy system. While some of these are focussed on demand management, many do involve new urban infrastructure. In the light of this, a conference run at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL last Friday on Infrastructure Development and Planning was very interesting. This highlighted the new regime that has emerged over the last decade and that is being reinforced by the current Coalition Government. Under this approach, planning is centrally about initiating new infrastructure patterns to guide and service new urban development. It also has to mesh with a local government focus on identifying current plans for infrastructure investment from the public and private sectors and matching this against future needs, with a concrete plan (the Infrastructure Delivery Plan) to fill the resulting gap. This regime works most easily where large chunks of infrastructure (a new public transport line) or aggregate infrastructure investment plans (from the health sector) can be identified. How tihs will work when faced with numerous, decentralised initiatives in energy generation and distribution is a moot point. This is an issue we will be looking out for when we conduct our local case studies.

Yvonne Rydin

Frieburg and Malmo (Part 2)

I was in Sweden for the concluding URBAN-NET conference (see http://www.urban-net.org/) which took place in Malmo. This gave the opportunity of looking around Sweden's most cosmopolitan border city and hear the Chair of the Council's Executive Board, Ilmar Repalu, explain about the redevelopment of the Western Harbour as an iconic low carbon settlement. Malmo used to be a shipbuilding port, home to the world's largest crane. By the 1990s the industry had died and the city was left with a large area to regenerate; 1 million sq.m. of dereliction. Sustainability was to be the motto for regeneration and so they started by attraching a Sustainable Housing Expo and built out the first neighbourhood complete with wind turbines, PVs, solar collectors, district heating, heat recovery and an acquifer heat pump into the fractured limestone that allows summer heat to be stored for winter use and winter coolth for summer use. With the advantage of off-shore wind and a PV array, the housing uses 100% locally produced renewable energy. Further developments have continued. Malmo now houses the European Academy for Green Roofs, composting and recycling has been retrofitted into existing council housing areas, and ENVAC has been fitted int to take away waste for recycling. The council bus fleet is 100% powered by biogas; 40% of people cycle to work or school across the flat but windy landscape.
The regeneration of Malmo probably would not have been successful without two features. First, the Oresund bridge now brings the city within 30mins of Copenhagen and has opened up new prospects of inward investment. Second, local government continues to have considerable resources to direct the new development. Electricity supply has been privatised but they still own the water utility and transport is run by a regional public body. When the Swedish government was proposing the creation of a number of new universities, the city council was able to buy the remaining land in Western Harbour and offer it free as a location for the new Malmo University. This was a very canny move as, not only has it resulted in a university in a stunning waterside location, but it has brought a new kind of economic and social activity only five minutes walk from the very centre of the city.
The world's largest crane has now been sold and exported to Korea. The old port workers lined up in tribute to Malmo's passing heritage to see it dismantled and sail away. Now a new iconic twisting tower dominates the skyline, home to some of the service industry that now underpins Malmo's economy. Malmo may have had some luck in being able to underpin sustainable urban development with a rising economic opportunities but it is to the credit of the local council that they took these opportunities and used them so skillfully.

Yvonne Rydin

Frieburg and Malmo (Part 1)

I had the opportunity recently to compare notes on two famed eco-neighbourhoods: Freiburg and Malmo. On 1st March, Wulf Daseking, chief planner of Freiburg came to speak at the Bartlett School of Planning, UCL. He took us through the distinctive planning styles of each decade in the city and highlighted the key decisions that had help create a more sustainable urban pattern. In the 1950s, when considering how to respond to the dreadful bomb damage of WWII, the city council decided to maintain densities in the town and to preserve the pre-existing street lines and plot sizes. Much of the character of the town centre depends on these decisions. In the 1960s, the tram system was put in place and green fingers were preserved from development, preventing continuous urban sprawl. The close link between urban development and accessibility to the tram system was established. Then in the 1970s, investment in public spaces occurred and pedestrianisation extended. The following decade saw a zoning plan that limited large supermarket development dependent on car parking. Existing shopping malls became the focus of densification plans, with added community facilities and green spaces. And more recently, there has been targeted new development which aims at zero carbon standards, low car use, mixed land uses and a strong emphasis on place making. What is distinctive about this period is the development model: a proportion of increased land value on private developments is made available to planners for affordable housing; the council is able to buy land at existing use value and then sells it on at a price that reflects the costs of all the essential infrastructure that the council puts in; and 'baugruppen' are used whereby each plot is built out by a group with a different architect. This enables the cost of new energy infrastructure such as district heating to be recouped and for new development then to fit within the new energy framework. All these principles have now been captured in the Frieburg Charter which was launched by the Academy of Urbanism on 2nd March 2011. Keep an eye out for it!

Yvonne Rydin