Content

RESOLVED:
 
1. 
Approve
the final Green Infrastructure Strategy (GIS) attached as Appendix
1;

 
2. 
Approve
the final Local Nature Recovery Plan (LNRP) attached as Appendix 2;
and
 
3. 
Delegate
authority to the Group Director for Climate, Homes and Economy to
make any amendments to the Green Infrastructure Strategy (GIS) and
Local Nature Recovery Plan (LNRP) as necessary.
 
REASONS FOR DECISION
 
More than 40% of the borough’s land is classified as
green cover, made up of parks, open spaces, gardens and other green
areas. The Council has long recognised the significant impact that
green infrastructure (including quality parks and green spaces) can
have on the achievement of its vision and objectives, and has
therefore placed a high priority on developing and improving them
over the last decade or so. The development of a Green
Infrastructure Strategy also reflects an earlier manifesto
commitment to develop a Public Realm Infrastructure Plan and was
identified as a recommended action arising from the Local Plan
evidence base open space assessment work. The development of a
Local Nature Recovery Plan meets the commitment to update the
Council’s earlier Biodiversity Action Plan, as well as new
requirements under the Environment Act 2021 for the preparation of
Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
 
Climate change is accelerating ecological decline and can
exacerbate the pollution of our air and water. Changing weather
patterns and shifting seasons disrupt ecological cycles, air
pollution gets worse during heatwaves
and summer storms wash contaminants into our rivers and canals.
Protecting, improving and increasing the Borough’s green
infrastructure can tackle some of these problems, while also
helping to reduce temperatures and flood risk. Spending time
outdoors in green spaces or good quality public realm has proven
benefits for both physical and mental health, and can help overcome
isolation and increase opportunities to connect with others, but
can be curbed by poor air quality, noise or lack of shade or
shelter.
 
Green infrastructure is therefore integral and essential to
the Borough’s resilience, meeting its future challenges and
the delivery of its wider strategies, both at a community and
individual level. Green infrastructure has a key role to play
in:
· 
Cooling
the Urban Environment and Improving Air
Quality:
Urban green infrastructure, particularly spaces with significant
tree cover and/or large water bodies, have always played an
important role as places to seek respite from high temperatures and
large canopied trees can significantly reduce temperatures at
street level by providing shade;
· 
Encouraging Walking and Cycling: Walking and cycling more results
in better physical health and is the main way Londoners get their
physical activity. Green infrastructure in cities can promote
alternative transportation methods - pleasant quiet or car free
routes can encourage people to walk or cycle instead of driving.
Parks and green spaces play an important role in providing
through-routes / active travel routes;
· 
Enhancing
Biodiversity and Ecological Resilience: There are benefits in enhancing
natural processes for the benefit of people and wildlife,
conserving the most special landscapes habitats and
species;
· 
Improving
Health and Wellbeing: There are significant public health benefits of
green infrastructure, particularly quality parks and green spaces.
The Natural Solutions to Tackling Health Inequalities (2014) report
indicated that better health is related to access to green space
regardless of socio-economic status;
· 
Improving
Access to Nature: Access to Nature is an important aspect of the health
benefits of green infrastructure – especially in relation to
mental health. In a densely populated borough like Hackney it is
incredibly important to provide access to nature for
residents;
· 
Improving
Community Cohesion: As London’s and Hackney’s populations
grow and experience demographic changes, parks and green spaces
will play a more vital role in promoting community and cultural
cohesion. Parks and green spaces have always been places where
people and cultures mix and build communities. Cultural festivals,
events and public art bring different communities together in
shared spaces, building a sense of place and of shared
values;
· 
Managing
Flood Risk: Green infrastructure interventions play an important role
in reducing flood risk by absorbing, storing or dispersing flood
water; and
· 
Population
and Changing Demographics: Hackney’s increasing population means that
the amount of green space per person is essentially reducing over
time. It is vital that new areas of green space are identified to
meet this growing demand, and that green space is factored into new
developments.
 
The Council declared a climate emergency in 2019, supported
by an ambitious vision to rebuild a greener Hackney in the wake of
the coronavirus pandemic. The GIS and LNRP are some of the key
tools to addressing the need to adapt to a changing climate, as
well as protecting and enhancing nature.
 
Alongside the GIS and LNRP is the Hackney Climate Action
Plan (CAP), the first holistic borough-wide plan to address the
climate and ecological crisis, bringing together the various
strands into one overall document. Three of the five themes are
particularly relevant to the beneficial role of green
infrastructure and nature.
· 
Adaptation - ensuring
that we are prepared for and resilient to the impacts of the
climate emergency, protecting our most vulnerable
residents;
· 
Transport - reducing
emissions from the transport network, improving air quality and
helping residents live active and healthy lifestyles;
and
· 
Environmental Quality
- maximising the potential for biodiversity in our green spaces,
reducing pollution and helping local ecosystems thrive.
 
Green Infrastructure Strategy
This is a time of significant change in the Borough. The
forecast population growth over the next 20 years and the
Council’s targets set as part of the declaration of a climate
emergency, will require the Borough’s green infrastructure to
provide an increased range of functions and benefits in the coming
years. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic has further highlighted
the importance of Hackney’s green infrastructure; in
particular the need for open spaces that allow people to socialise
and exercise outdoors.
 
The term green infrastructure describes the network of
parks and green spaces, trees and woodlands, rivers and wetlands,
and new green features in the urban environment such as green roofs
and walls. This network can be planned, designed and managed to
provide a wide range of environmental, social and economic benefits
that support more sustainable, liveable and resilient
neighbourhoods. The GIS identifies:
· 
what green
infrastructure is present;
· 
the functions it
performs;
· 
the benefits this
provides to address local needs, as well as more strategic
objectives; and
· 
how these benefits can
be maintained and optimised through a more integrated approach to
protecting, enhancing and creating green infrastructure.
 
Maintaining and improving green infrastructure is a
cross-cutting issue. The green infrastructure network is
multi-functional and provides multiple benefits that can contribute
to the delivery of the statutory duties and objectives of all parts
of the local authority. Therefore, Borough services that are
responsible for highways, housing, health, planning and resilience,
are important stakeholders and delivery partners, in addition to
the service and officers responsible for the management of parks,
green spaces and trees.
 
In addition, a green infrastructure network almost always
spans administrative boundaries; so it is necessary to understand
the spatial distribution and function of a borough’s
strategic green infrastructure assets in relation to the strategic
green infrastructure in neighbouring boroughs. Where features, such
as river corridors, need to be considered at a catchment scale to
fully understand flood risk for example, green infrastructure may
need to be considered at a sub-regional scale.
 
Many green infrastructure assets will not be owned or
managed by the Council. Some, such as railway lines-sides, or
grounds of schools or hospitals, will be owned and managed by other
public bodies, or non-profit, charitable, or non-governmental
organisations such as housing associations and environmental
organisations. Other assets might be in private ownership
including, for example, private gardens, reservoirs, and most green
roofs. Although the Council may not have any direct responsibility
for these assets, their existing and potential value and function
in supporting the objectives of the GIS should be recognised, as
appropriate, in order to influence the plans and decisions of other
owners and managers of green 
infrastructure. In particular, many of these assets might be
especially important for establishing better connections that will
improve the function of the overall network.
 
The vision for the GIS is:
‘By 2030 Hackney will be a series
of liveable neighbourhoods that are resilient to the effects of
climate change, provide a biodiverse
network for wildlife to thrive and support the physical health and
mental wellbeing of residents’
 
The GIS identities a number of key objectives:
· 
To improve
residents’ health and well-being;
· 
To be more resilient
to the impacts of climate change;
· 
To reduce deficiency
in green open space; and
· 
To enhance
biodiversity and increase ecological connectivity.
 
It also identifies a number of strategic
opportunities:
 
Modifying existing parks and amenity green
spaces: Parks have to provide a wide-variety of functions and
services. Traditionally these have focused on sport, recreation and
conservation of landscape heritage. But the need to address public
health, climate and the ecological crisis suggests that the design
and management of parks needs to shift to respond to these more
contemporary demands. Further, there are over 200 housing estates
within Hackney, many of which include areas of amenity green space
with limited function. Maximising the range of benefits this green
space provides has the potential to improve the function and
overall resilience of the Borough’s green infrastructure.
This could include, subject to consultation with estate residents,
structural planting to provide a barrier to air and noise
pollution, provision of areas for community food growing,
rain-gardens to store and release stormwater run-off, and wildlife gardens to improve
contact with nature amongst others.
 
Transforming streets and public realm:
Streets and civic
spaces comprise a considerable part of the existing public realm.
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and School Streets that reduce the
dominance of traffic provide an opportunity to create greener areas
of the public realm. Examples include - green links and corridors,
pocket parks, street trees and SuDS
amongst others.
 
Promoting urban greening: Regeneration and development
provides an opportunity for more targeted and coordinated delivery
of green infrastructure that goes beyond the incremental
‘site by site’ greening that will be delivered as
development comes forward in the rest of the Borough. This is
particularly relevant especially within Opportunity Areas and parts
of the Borough covered by Area Action Plans.
 
Local Nature Recovery Plan 
 
Alongside the widely publicised climate emergency there is
also an increasingly severe ecological crisis. The State of Nature
(England) report published in 2019 indicates that England’s
biodiversity is continuing to decline.
 
Conserving wildlife in urban areas is both a challenge and
a necessity. A challenge because there are multiple competing
land-uses in urban areas, exacerbated by high population density
and intense recreational demand on existing parks and green spaces.
A necessity because not only is there a moral responsibility to
provide space for wildlife, but also because making space for
nature has benefits for people too, not least for improving public
health and mitigating the impacts of climate change.
 
Hackney has a long-tradition of conserving wildlife, much
of it led and delivered by community groups and volunteers. Abney
Park Cemetery was declared a statutory Local Nature Reserve in 1993
and the first Hackney Biodiversity Action Plan was published in
2012. Between then and now wildlife conservation has been bolstered
by a range of projects and initiatives including: changes in parks
management to allow for the establishment of wildflower meadows;
the creation of Woodberry Wetlands nature reserve; an extensive
tree-planting programme; an increase in biodiverse green roofs and many community-led
projects aiming to increase opportunities for wildlife in parks, on
housing estates, along the canal, and in private
gardens.
 
Central Government has indicated that it requires local
authorities to prepare Local Nature Recovery Strategies to help
reverse biodiversity decline. In London the Greater London
Authority recommended that these are Local Nature Recovery Plans
(alongside plans for parks and the ‘urban forest’),
that are delivery plans for a comprehensive and integrated Green
Infrastructure Strategy. An LNRP is a component part of a wider GIS
and operationalises the nature conservation, biodiversity and
ecology objectives of the GIS.
 
Hackney’s Local Nature Recovery Plan (LNRP) in
Appendix 2 has the Borough’s Sites of Importance for Nature
Conservation (SINCs) as the foundation of a local nature recovery
network. Their continued protection and appropriate management is a
prerequisite for ensuring local nature recovery.
 
The local nature recovery network in Hackney is based on
three key principles:
· 
to protect what is
best;
· 
to increase
connectivity between the best habitats; and
· 
to create new habitat
and features for wildlife to augment existing good quality habitat
and to strengthen connectivity.
 
The Borough is divided into five ‘nature recovery
areas’ which identify opportunities for projects and
interventions that can help make ecological connections that
protect, augment and connect the SINC network through, for example,
enhancements to parks, wildlife-friendly planting in amenity
green-spaces, and urban greening in new developments. The plan also
identifies a range of plant and animal species that are classified
as flagship species, which require particular measures to conserve
and protect locally important populations, or which can be
indicators of local nature recovery as the plan is implemented and
they become more widespread across the Borough.
 
The LNRP is not an exhaustive suite of projects and
proposals. It provides a framework which will improve ecological
connectivity across the Borough based on a core network of
protected and well-managed SINCs. With this framework in place
everyone with influence on the design and management of land
(including the built environment) can make a contribution to making
Hackney richer in wildlife. The LNRP provides examples and links to
further guidance to aid those wanting to support this
ambition.
 
Revising the draft GIS
 
A public consultation was carried out to gather feedback on
the draft GIS. The consultation opened on 10 February 2022 and ran
for six weeks until 23 March 2022. The revised GIS (Appendix 1)
takes account of the comments and feedback received during this
process. There were high levels of support for the vision and
objectives and proposals, as well as some caveats. Further, more
detailed insight was provided on specific projects and
recommendations, which will be used to inform and shape future
delivery.
 
A draft of the LNRP was appended to the public consultation
for the GIS. Although this wasn’t a formal part of the
consultation, a number of detailed comments and suggestions were
received, generally from those with a specialist knowledge of
ecology. These have been reviewed as part of the GIS consultation
responses.
 
A public consultation report on the draft GIS was produced
in May 2022 and a revised GIS was produced subsequently, based on
analysis of the consultation responses. The analysis encompassed a
review of all consultation responses by external consultants, with
key updates incorporated into the revised GIS. These are summarised
below:
· 
Revising the vision
date to 2030 from 2040 based on responses and emphasising
biodiversity more significantly in the vision statement;
· 
Strengthening
objectives in respect of biodiversity and nature;
· 
Minor revisions to
objectives, opportunities and suggested project proposals amongst
others;
· 
Reference to
Biodiversity Net Gain as part of the Environment Act, which will be
an added planning requirement in November 23 for new major
developments and was not included in the draft GIS;
· 
Alignment of key
projects with the three year Council Implementation Plan which
forms part of the CAP; and
· 
Updating the sections
on governance, monitoring and reporting to better reflect a focus
on the LNRP.
 
Forward Plan
 
As part of the process of developing the draft GIS, an
outline forward delivery plan was produced based on the
opportunities and projects identified in the GIS. This was not
included in the public consultation materials, being at an early
stage of development, as well as wanting to enable a more open
framed consultation process on the vision, opportunities and
objectives so as to shape the content of the final delivery plan.
Since then a Climate Action Plan has been developed supported by a
Council Implementation Plan.
 
Key themes of the CAP align well with the objectives of the
GIS and LNRP. with three particularly relevant to the beneficial
role of green infrastructure and nature.
· 
Adaptation - ensuring
that we are prepared for and resilient to the impacts of the
climate emergency, protecting our most vulnerable
residents;
· 
Transport - reducing
emissions from the transport network, improving air quality and
helping residents live active and healthy lifestyles;
and
· 
Environmental Quality
- maximising the potential for biodiversity in our green spaces,
reducing pollution and helping local ecosystems thrive.
 
The original outline forward plan will therefore be
reviewed with internal service colleagues post adoption of the
GIS/LNRP, so that key Council projects in the GIS and LNRP are
captured in the Council Implementation Plan within the CAP. These
will reflect where capital funding has already been committed, such
as activities associated with the recent transport settlement from
TfL, plus also more aspirational
activities such as the potential green links identified with the
GIS and further tree planting programmes in areas of need. The
Council Implementation Plan will be part of the appendices of the
annual report on progress with decarbonisation commitments at Full
Council in July 2023, and is initially for a period of three years,
but will extend annually to tie in with the CAP period up to
2030.
 
A period of three years is to:
· 
Provide a sharper
focus on the key actions needed now to maintain momentum;
and
· 
Recognise that future
funding settlements and levels of other external grant funding are
likely to be extremely unpredictable and hence longer timeframe
commitments would be at high risk.