UK planners gain lessons from Greece in warming climate

UK planners are set to learn how to cope with rising temperatures after winning millions of euros in EU cash. The money will go towards helping share information between the nine member states taking part.

If a predicted rise of two degrees centigrade by 2050 comes true, Britain will benefit from understanding how Mediterranean countries cope with keeping urban areas green and infrastructure intact. Greece and Sicily are among the participants. 14 partners will develop the scheme, sharing the money between all states.

Kate Henderson from the Town and Country Planning Association (TCPA) who helped lead the project from the UK, said it was time to look at the effects of global warming as well as its mitigation.”

Learning to adapt

“This is all about raising the profile of adaptation. While most of the focus has been on the – hugely important – area of preventing climate change and renewables, we need to learn how to adapt development to the rises in temperature that we are definitely going to see.”

Henderson said the money would fund

• Examination of existing delivery mechanism, adaptation strategies and urban greening

We will definitely see a two degree rise. This is all about raising the profile of climate change adaptation.

Kate Henderson, TCPA

• Developing a climate change adaptation tool which local planning officers can incorporate into their plans.

• Looking at the role that stakeholders play in planning and long-term management of green areas.

The project, called Green and Blue Space Adaptation for Urban Areas and Eco Towns (GRaBS) received its funding from the EU INTERREG IVC Programme.

Greening urban areas

TCPA head, Gideon Amos, said: ““We are delighted that the GRaBS project has won funding from the EU INTERREG IVC Programme. Urban areas are vulnerable to increased temperatures and flooding. Regional spatial planning and urban design can provide solutions that make our communities less vulnerable to these risks.

Green infrastructure including gardens, parks, productive landscapes, green corridors and green roofs and walls and blue infrastructure such as water bodies, rivers, streams, floodplains and sustainable drainage systems, play a vital role in creating climate resilient development, a role, which is currently not sufficiently recognised and utilised and lacks integration in main stream planning.”