As members of the editorial advisory panel are each invited to pen the editorial for Engineering Sustainability, readers should be able to get a better insight into the particular backgrounds and interests that we each bring and hopefully get a better picture of us as people rather than simply names down the side of the contents page.
As one of the original panel members and having been involved with the journal since its first edition, I am pleased to take this opportunity tell you a little about my background, how I became interested in this agenda, where I would like to see greater progress and why I think the papers in this edition of the journal successfully contribute to the debate.
Readers will see that I work in local government. I have worked in local government for some 35 years since graduating and all in the north-east of England. Over those 35 years, my career path has enabled me to take an interest in and, to an extent, influence parts of this challenging agenda that we are facing today. For example, it is some 30 years since my first involvement in trying to shape and influence the extent to which walking and cycling can realistically play a greater role in short journeys. ‘Personal mobility or where are my feet?’, a paper which I am pleased to say was awarded a regional prize at the time, illustrated how the shift in housing, employment and commercial development had significantly changed the demand and means of travel in the Teesside conurbation area. Comparing the journey patterns and land-use developments over several decades showed how much had changed, so much so that the role that cycling and walking had played had been reduced significantly as the distances between home, work, education and shopping had increased. It is probably no surprise then that a passionate interest in developing safe networks of cycle routes linking schools, housing and employment sites within the area emerged.
In a later role as Head of the Highways, Transport and Waste Management Service in Northumberland, responsible for over 5000 km of roads and 2000 structures, I was able to pursue my interest in further developing the potential for encouraging cycling and, both for local trips and in association with Sustrans, key parts of the national cycle network through the spectacular coast-and-castles scenery of Northumberland. This new role, with the added responsibility for road safety, also focused one's attention on the importance of creating safe and accessible pedestrian routes if we were to make any impact on reducing car journeys to schools.
It was later with a growing realisation that, if we were to secure effective and sustainable economic, social and environmental regeneration new ways of working were needed, an opportunity led me to my current role. One of my main aims in recent years has been to encourage colleagues to work together across organisational, geographical or professional boundaries to secure better outcomes for their communities.
I am pleased that one of those initiatives, a partnership to encourage and secure renewable energy research, development, application and generation in Northumberland, continues to stimulate the growth of sustainable energy and construction in Northumberland and the wider region. You will therefore gather that there are some aspects of this agenda that I feel closely attached to and which I hope to continue to influence.
I think therefore that it is particularly important that national and regional planning continues to provide effective tools to enable practitioners in the system to ensure that progress on this challenging agenda can be maintained and increased. An example of this for me would relate to regional spatial strategies.
Regional spatial strategies are required in all English regions to set out a long-term strategy for the spatial development of the area. The overall vision, strategy and general policies are intended to guide development over a long timescale. It provides the special context for the delivery of other regional strategies, in particular relating to economy, housing and transport. The regional spatial strategy is part of the statutory development plan and local planning authorities prepare the other components of the development plan, local development frameworks, which should be in general conformity with it.
It is particularly timely, in my view, that the panel that has recently examined the regional spatial strategy for the north-east of England has recommended the inclusion of a new set of policies proposed by the region relating to ‘Mitigating and adapting to climate change’.1 If this new set of policies is accepted the final regional spatial strategy will, in my view, include some very powerful tools to ensure that future development takes full regard to regional targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by improving the energy efficiency of new buildings, maximising sustainable use of resources and encouraging sustainable transport solutions. It would further strengthen the potential to address such challenges if all such regional spatial strategies were to include clear policies to ensure that new development was obliged to demonstrate that measures were taken to both mitigate against and adapt to climate change.
July 2006 saw the publication of another sustainable construction guide for central Government; this time a consultation on ‘sustainable schools’, which follows sustainable communities and sustainable homes guides.2 It is time for the construction industry to consider whether it has the skills and knowledge to deliver the government's growing sustainability agenda. Many colleges throughout the UK offer construction-based vocational courses but very few address the issue of sustainability. Under the new further education remit, colleges are required to demonstrate that they are industry focused. This means that, if the construction industry requires the skills, then they should engage with the education providers, who should be able to adapt courses to respond to demand. It would be interesting to hear if readers share a similar concern about the development of skills to deliver this challenging agenda.
The first paper in this issue is published in response to our call for papers on sustainable mobility. Simon Barnett of Living Streets argues that, while society is looking for increasingly technological answers to solve imminent transport crises, walking is often overlooked as a viable alternative for short trips. Recognising that a complex matrix of factors affects the decisions we take, to walk or not, Simon illustrates that providing a street environment and public realm that encourage walking will start to create a better balance in our villages, towns and cities, making it easier to choose to walk.
The distinction in this paper is the recognition of the importance of involving local people and utilising local knowledge to add value to an understanding of generic pedestrian issues, accessibility for all users, designing-out crime and connectivity.
The author rightly argues in situ consultation reinforces ideas and helps local people express and explain the issues that are important to them, with the result that changes to the local area are more likely to break down some of the barriers to walking as an alternative. It is interesting that the local study of only four district centre sites a number of recurring issues faced by pedestrians were identified.
The joint paper by Nigel Pontee, Stephen Hull and Jamie Moore presents the findings of a case study into a banked realignment scheme at Welwick in the Humber Estuary. The paper illustrates the benefits in terms of creating habitats that have greater physical and biological connectivity with the wider estuary at one of the few recent managed realignment schemes to involve the whole-scale removal of the fronting flood embankment rather than the creation of breaches. The paper suggests that predicted increases in the rate of sea-level rise, coupled with increases in maintenance costs of sea defences, mean that many more sea defences are likely to become uneconomic to sustain.
The cost-effective sustainable redevelopment of brownfield industrial sites is a key challenge if we are to successfully regenerate many of our urban cores. The paper by Jonathan Dunlop describes the measures taken at the former Mackies complex in Belfast to ensure that the development is socially, economically and environmentally sustainable and achieves significant cost savings. By both taking decisions at the design stage and adopting a number of techniques in the construction phase of the scheme, the project has demonstrated that it is possible to make considerable cost savings, even on high risk sites. The site described in the report appears to be typical of many of our brownfield sites which have had a varied historical use and present a high environmental risk. The paper presents a useful practical demonstration of what can be achieved. Could the project have gone that extra mile and re-invested the savings made into infrastructure features that could make subsequent development more economically sustainable, for example, ground-source heat infrastructure to reduce subsequent operating costs?
The fourth paper presents the results of a study looking at the potential to introduce sustainable drainage systems (Suds) at a total of 182 sites within Glasgow and Edinburgh. The paper describes the development of practical Suds tools by the author Miklas Scholz, his research team and senior planners, to provide the civil engineer with a novel, practical tool to assess the suitability of different Suds techniques for a particular site.
The research work demonstrates that it is feasible to implement different Suds techniques within both cities that are fundamentally different from each other in physical and socio-economic features. From this initial study of 182 sites, the paper concludes by identifying 14 entirely different Suds demonstration areas/sites that are representative of both different sustainable drainage techniques and different types of areas available for development and regeneration within Glasgow and Edinburgh. The paper provides readers with links to access the latest draft of the model and invites feedback from the civil engineering community. I would encourage those with an interest in this area to visit the website and apply the draft model to one of your own sites and give the team some feedback.
The final paper, by Professor Barry Hughes, focuses on the essential requirements for a long-life sustainable pavement and outlines the shortcomings and deficiencies in conventional, continuously-reinforced concrete pavement design. The paper argues that optimal design of continuously-reinforced concrete pavement can produce low-maintenance sustainable pavements with extremely long service lives and significant advantages in terms of low life cost and economic and social benefits from reduced fuel consumption and pollution.
The paper suggests that the same basic theory that revolutionised the design of water-retaining structures could be applied to concrete pavements. Arguing that the resulting dramatic savings in the capital costs of water-retaining structures had sped up the adoption of the technique and the same could be possible for pavements. However the author recognises that a cultural change in attitude towards budgeting for the very long term and placing a value on associated economic, social and environmental advantages will be needed before the adoption of this theory to pavements is realised.
