The green infrastructure benchmark, Building with Nature, has been awarded the 'Sir Peter Hall Award for Wider Engagement' at the RTPI Awards for Research Excellence. The benchmark has been developed over the last three years as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) between Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust and University, West of England (UWE) - of which has been supported and endorsed from inception by the Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership.
The announcement was made on 3 September during the opening ceremony of the UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference, in Sheffield. The RTPI Awards for Research Excellence recognise and promote high quality, impactful spatial planning research from RTPI accredited planning schools in the UK, the Republic of Ireland and internationally.
This is a great accolade for the benchmark and Gemma Jerome, the Building with Nature Manager, who you see proudly scooping up the award in Sheffield. Adrian Phillips MRTPI (former chair of the Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership), remarked on the award:
”It’s great news that the value of Building with Nature has been recognised in this way by the RTPI. If we are to build the homes and infrastructure we need in future without screwing the planet, we need better planned development than we have often had in the past. That is why the Gloucestershire Local Nature Partnership was so pleased to be involved in this project – and proud to have brought the conservation and economic interests together to support it. Now we need to turn the fine words of Building with Nature into reality and create good living spaces for people and nature.”