Project Overview
A roadmap for restoring, enhancing, and connecting Green Infrastructure for people and nature in a post-industrial landscape
The UK government is providing a £220 million UK Community Renewal Fund (UKCRF) that seeks to help local areas prepare for the launch of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in 2022. The Department of Biosciences at Swansea University have received funding for a green infrastructure (GI) project based in Neath Port Talbot: A roadmap for restoring, enhancing and connecting Green Infrastructure for people and nature in a post-industrial landscape.
Green infrastructure (GI) is an interconnected network of natural and semi-natural multifunctional features in terrestrial and aquatic environments that promotes ecosystem resilience and provide a range of benefits to people's wellbeing.
A surprising, yet welcome outcome from the unprecedented upheaval of COVID-19, is that society has seen a greater reconnection between people and their natural environment. This project comes at an exciting time and is a valuable opportunity to align local community renewal with the ambitious local and national plans to decarbonise and increase the benefits associated with biodiversity secured through GI.
This will develop the scientific evidence-base required to allow the Neath Port Talbot Council (NPTC) area to strategically create a resilient GI network. NPTC has a legacy of industrial decline, with below average incomes, major health inequalities (including mental health and wellbeing), poor air quality and high unemployment. The project targets economically deprived communities and places close to underused greenspaces, to improve health and wellbeing outcomes by reconnecting people with nature.
The project has three broad aims:
1. A county-wide network analysis identifying key opportunities and barriers to GI creation and regeneration (ecological, policy-driven, economic, societal);
2. Connecting people to the wider landscape with innovative techniques to improve access, engagement and understanding of nature (including launch of a mobile application to increase engagement with GI);
3. GI improvement activities focussing on key biodiversity, health and well-being outcomes, developing best practice at a pilot urban park (King George V Park, Pontardawe).
The project commenced in November 2021, and will conclude in December 2022.
Initially the main benefits of this project will be focused on Neath Port Talbot through the provision of improved greenspace and information on access, use and benefits. Over the course of the project, 283 datasets have been collected from 28 databases, associated with 15 GI-related topics. Assembling and interpreting this evidence base will directly inform strategic and local GI decisions, plans and projects. The longer-term goal of the project is to support the Green Renewal in South and West Wales, by identifying social and environmental barriers, opportunities, and best practices, and directly linking with national biodiversity, carbon and climate policy goals.
