20-minute neighbourhoods can be a catalyst for environmental regeneration across Scotland
People are re-evaluating the role that environmental regeneration can play in restoring the fortunes of towns and urban spaces, and there’s never been a more important time to capitalise on improving places in order to live more sustainably.
That’s the message from the trusted delivery partner for environmental regeneration across Scotland, the Green Action Trust.
The Green Action Trust has welcomed a suite of measures in the Scottish Government’s recent Programme for Government statement which put a renewed focus on place – enabling people to live more sustainably by situating services more locally, boosting active travel, repurposing land and buildings, and supporting community resilience.
Measures will be underpinned by a new £325million Place Based Investment Programme, which will support community-led regeneration including the development of 20-minute neighbourhoods.
Derek Robertson, Chief Executive of the Green Action Trust, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has created an increased focus on place, as people have had to re-imagine new working and living patterns. For the first time in a generation, we have an opportunity to revitalise communities and empower people to be more sustainable by providing means to work, access services and enjoy recreation closer to home.
“The 20-minute neighbourhood concept encapsulates that, and to see a strong emphasis on 20-minute neighbourhoods and place-based principles weaved throughout the Scottish Government’s recent Programme for Government is hugely welcome.”
20-minute neighbourhoods are referenced throughout regeneration, environmental and public health policy and are designed to enable people to work, access key services and take recreation within a 20-minute walk of the home.
Where services are situated further away, improved public transport or active travel links would provide better opportunities for sustainable travel.
The concept will be further strengthened in the Scottish Government’s Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) which is due to be published later this year.
Mr Robertson continued: “What we now need to do is turn ideas into reality, and the Green Action Trust is ideally placed to deliver.
“The success of 20 minute neighbourhoods is as dependent on place quality as it is on the proximity of specific services and facilities.
“If the overall fabric of a place is poor and people are not encouraged to walk, cycle or wheel, they will stay indoors or choose to drive to places where they feel safer.
“Drawing on our decades of experience delivering the Central Scotland Green Network – one of the largest green infrastructure projects in Europe – we understand that green and blue spaces are important facilities in their own right – offering both physical activity and mental relaxation, whilst also making buildings, streets and other hard infrastructure look more attractive and work more effectively against flood risk, rising temperatures and poor air quality.
“Not just that, but our work planning, designing and delivering green active travel networks create well connected, walkable neighbourhoods – safely prioritising pedestrians and cyclists whilst cutting emissions and increasing enjoyment of green spaces.
“This is a major opportunity waiting to be grasped.
“Through our new strategic partnership with Scotland’s Towns Partnership, and continued collaboration with public bodies, local authorities, business groups and communities we can deliver 20-minute neighbourhoods and be the catalyst for environmental regeneration across Scotland.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here