GREEN & BLUE INFRASTRUCTURE
Kings Crescent Development,
Hackney London.
The planning system has tried to
change this over recent years, and
many government initiatives have
been successful in stopping the
erosion of animal and insect life in
our towns and cities. The removal
of permitted rights to pave front
gardens with impermeable paving
is a step in the right direction, but
more needs to be done. However
the recent Biodiversity Metric
2.0 launched in July 2019 by
Natural England provides a way
of measuring and accounting
for biodiversity losses and gains
resulting from development or land
management change.
Floral Court, Covent Garden
London
The scale of many new residential
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schemes and redeveloped schemes
– including the one above, Kings
Crescent in Hackney with density
of buildings works against a
biodiverse area. Many of our
biodiverse habitats have evolved
over hundreds or even thousands
of years, and we cannot expect to
replicate this overnight. One area
that needs attention is ensuring
that our landscape designs include
species of plants that encourage
greater biodiversity, and that we link
our green areas together to allow
movement through our schemes of
animals and insects. Often the issue
comes down to the cost factor, both
of installation and of maintenance,
and thus we find areas which could
have native tree planting and wild
seed planting are turned to grassed
strips, which provide very little
habitat or food for the nature we
want to encourage.
Kenmont Rain Garden
Another critical factor that is often
neglected is the long-term health of
a scheme. New developments are
often adopted by local authorities,
who are permanently strapped for
funding, and who do not have the
resource to maintain a biologically
rich environment. At times local
authorities charge a commuted
sum to allow for maintenance that
is prohibitive to the developer
that the important parts get value
engineered – cut out.
In our experience, one of the best
ways to increase bio-diversity is
to plant less trees but plant them
better.
Incorporating trees into Sustainable
Urban Drainage Schemes (SuDS)
brings additional benefits for both
habitat and human enjoyment. Trees
can be planted in such a way that
they do not take up large amounts
of developable land, and when used
as storm water managers, these
magnificent living plants can pay for
themselves many times over. Please
contact one of the GreenBlue Urban
design team for details of how to
add biodiversity to your project,
adding value to the schemes.
www.greenblue.com
www.landud.co.uk
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