The importance of greening our cities and urban places has never been stronger. Recent changes to national planning guidance – the National Planning Policy Framework – in December 2024 have emphasised the strategic importance of planning for green infrastructure as part of ensuring sustainable growth. The NPPF asks local authorities and developers to deliver the benefits of greenspaces for health and well-being, adaptation to climate change, biodiversity and air quality. A paper co-authored by Mike Grace with colleagues from the Universities of Oxford and Manchester, Natural England and private practice, has been published describing a comprehensive menu of standards for green infrastructure in England.
These will help deliver green space that is accessible, connected, multifunctional, and reflects local character. Green infrastructure such as street trees, parks, green roofs and raingardens can play a vital role in keeping our towns and cities clean, cool, safe and healthy, but it needs to be carefully planned to make sure we have enough green space for people and nature to thrive.
The paper is based on research commissioned by Natural England (NE; a government agency). NE has been developing a framework of green infrastructure Principles and Standards in partnership with a broad range of researchers and practitioners. The Framework is to help local authorities deliver high quality, multifunctional green infrastructure that meets local needs as well as national priorities.
A team of researchers including Senior Research Fellow Mike Grace and a co-lead of CEBE and BCU’s Smart Sustainable Green Cities research alliance, has been working with NE to help curate existing standards and guidelines into a comprehensive framework consisting of a Core Menu and five Headline Standards. The Headline Standards have already been released, and now a new paper has just been published describing the draft Core Menu to support delivery of the Headline Standards.
The Core Menu takes a holistic approach that moves planners and developers beyond simplistic metrics such as providing a total amount of green space, to deliver green infrastructure in line with 15 principles for multi-functional outcomes.
Natural England’s expectation is that green infrastructure should meet five ‘What’ principles, by being accessible, connected, locally distinctive, multi-functional and varied. In turn, this should deliver places that meet five ‘Why’ principles, by being nature rich and beautiful, active and healthy, thriving and prosperous, resilient and climate positive, and with improved water management. And finally, it should be delivered using the five ‘How’ principles, bringing together stakeholders to co-ordinate evidence-based green infrastructure development strategically across different sectors, with effective monitoring and evaluation.
The paper also shows how the draft standards provide flexibility to help balance national targets on climate, nature and health with the need to meet local needs, constraints and priorities. Crucially, for bigger impact with decision makers, the standards sit within the wider green infrastructure framework of supporting tools, advice and guidance, to help planners with limited resources deliver more effective and robust green infrastructure with multiple benefits.
Mike Grace is in further discussions with Natural England on how the research is making a difference with users.
One of the areas for future Smart Sustainable Green Cities research may be in how advanced digital technologies can be transformational in supporting the delivery of green infrastructure for communities, developers and local authorities.
The standards set out a framework for designing digital tools and in turn a basis for supporting the long-term management of these green assets in our cities to ensure the benefits green infrastructure delivers can be sustained.
