newsletterAUTUMN 2017 • ISSUE 18

LANDSCAPE • ECOLOGY • HERITAGE • MASTERPLANNING • ARBORICULTURE • EXPERT WITNESS

environmental planning, design & management

DP’s talented Arboriculture Team (don’t they look smart!) bring years of experience and expertise to provide pragmatic and

commercially-aware advice on trees to our developer and land-manager clients. Covering all three of EDP’s offices, our team provides on the doorstep advice, including Baseline Arboricultural Assessments, Arboricultural Impact Assessments and Arboricultural Method Statements. Gerard DoreGerard has worked within the Arboriculture Industry since 1987 and is the Arboricultural Technical Lead and Head of the Shrewsbury Office at EDP. Gerard’s experience includes managing large infrastructure and development projects and providing advice to expert witness level in all arboricultural disciplines. In his down time, Gerard enjoys growing chillies and cooking curries, which he then inflicts on loved ones. Luke TamblynLuke has over 18 years of experience, from working on the tools as a young lad to heading up the arboriculture team in the Cirencester Office. Luke predominantly undertakes arboricultural assessments, including acting as lead consultant, on large-scale development projects with utility and infrastructure companies and national house builders. Despite Luke’s recent foray into the world of Morris dancing, his key interest remains growing veg and looking after his chickens. Lindsey MulraineLindsey has over 10 years’ experience, including time acting as a Tree Officer within Local Government. Lindsey is proficient in all areas of tree legislation, including Tree Preservation Orders, trees within conservation areas and trees on development sites. Lindsey has two rescued greyhounds and is a keen netball player, so doesn’t have that much time to indulge in her other love of gardening. Tom CleetonTom is the newest member of the team and has recently relocated to EDP’s Cardiff office. Tom has worked for various local authorities across the UK as a climber, before progressing into visual tree assessment, surveying sites of varying sizes for local authorities and other national bodies, including the Forestry Commission. Tom is a keen member of the Scouting movement and, since moving to Wales, has developed an expensive interest in mountain bikes.

emarkable isn’t it, the way spring becomes summer and summer becomes autumn in the blink of an eye? As a Landscape Architect, the months ahead provide

an opportunity to secure ‘wintertime’ photographs to support Landscape and Visual Impact Assessments, while for our Ecologists it’s a time to draw breath, to report on the findings of another busy survey season and to help our clients prepare the planning applications and promotional documents which the surveys support. However, for most people the season simply suggests glorious displays of autumn foliage which the trees, woodlands and forests of the UK have to offer. With this in mind, we’ve decided to focus much of this edition on our Arboriculture Team and their subject area. Tree surveys remain a validation requirement on most planning authority ‘local lists’ (where trees are present within or immediately adjacent to the site) and as such, that team has also had a busy year and this looks set to continue over the winter months.

In addition, you’ll find articles on ecology, landscape and masterplanning inside,

plus on the back page a summary of a number of the new recruits

who have joined our team since the spring.

If we can help you with your own projects then do please get in touch – we’re always happy to provide advice on any of our specialisms.

welcome meet the edp arboriculture teamto the autumn 2017 edition

of the edp newsletter

Dai Lewis Director

ERLeft to right:

Lindsey, Gerard, Tom, Luke

news le t te r

We spent some time grappling with the sheer volume of housing that the brief needed to deliver; the ‘Transformative Scenario’ projects around one million new homes. Putting this in context, it’s the equivalent of around 12 Oxfords or 24 Bedfords. This staggering level of growth is hard to visualise without very bold solutions that make a departure from our current ways of thinking.

Is this level of growth realistic or achievable? The competition explores some interesting ideas that are becoming more urgent, and which we are tackling in our day-to-day work at present. The energy market, for example, is an area of rapid

innovation and development and we are at the forefront of delivering green energy schemes and integrating these into the landscape of our towns and cities.

We are already seeing the shift in focus from the ‘sustainable’ urban extension growth model, which places pressures on existing infrastructure, to new ‘garden communities’, which attempt to be more self-sufficient places.

EDP’s expertise in all environmental matters can help to weave together the green and blue infrastructure that forms the framework of new places, providing space for sustainable walking

and cycling connections, recreation and environmental services, and most importantly making memorable places informed by history and context. Instead of showcasing ‘best practice’ in our work, we need to create ‘next practice’!

The VarCity model was conceived as:

Having a strong landscape character that permeates the

entire corridor. At the strategic scale, green infrastructure

connects and creates a setting to the new settlements, and at the localised level, waterways and

woodlands form a green and blue network fully integrated with

the development;

12 new settlements are located at strategic locations along the transit routes, having potential to deliver between 20,000 and 50,000 new homes, scalable to adapt to changing future needs;

Residential and employment areas based on ‘ped-sheds’, or walkable

catchments from a central transit hub. A high density core is based upon a 5 minute walking catchment, and a lower density self-build zone in the outer zone

is accessed by bike;

Character is created through a contemporary re-imagining of

elements of the Oxbridge urban grain, human scaled features, such

as quads, squares and streets, and combining with the landscape

signatures of water meadows, fenlands and woodlands; and

Infrastructure would be flexible to accommodate future transport technologies such as driverless cars, electric bike parking hubs

next to stations, electric-car expressways with rechargeable surfaces, and even a hyperloop.

DP submitted an entry for this National Infrastructure Commission Competition, looking at ways of

integrating placemaking with infrastructure in one of the UK’s leading growth regions; the 130 mile Cambridge-Milton Keynes-Oxford corridor.

This region is a key driver of the UK knowledge economy, but productivity is currently restricted by a severe lack of affordable housing and transportation infrastructure.

The solution to this problem, at least in our minds, was to propose a string of connected new ‘VarCity’ settlements. These are located along intertwining public transport routes of rail, electric-only expressway and long-distance cycle commuter paths to create highly connected and car-free settlements.

Credits go to our internal team of masterplanners and landscape

architects, and our external team, which included WYG (planning),

Bruton Knowles (economics) Mode (transport) and Snapdragon

(community engagement).

the cambridge to oxford connection: ideas competitionhe principle of minimising biodiversity impacts and achieving net gains is embedded within national planning

policy. For example, in England, NPPF paragraph 109 states “The planning system should … enhance the natural and local environment by … minimising impacts on biodiversity and providing net gains in biodiversity where possible …”. This ties in with the concept of biodiversity offsetting, formally introduced by the UK Government in a 2011 White Paper. In addition to the principle of developers being able to contribute funds to off-site compensation to offset residual biodiversity loss, this also introduced methods of calculating the ‘biodiversity units’ before and after development to enable the net effect to be measured.

Regional pilot offsetting schemes (2012-2014) were not followed up by a national roll out. However, many local authorities have since adopted offsetting into local policy or Supplementary Planning Guidance, and require a ‘Biodiversity

Impact Assessment’ (BIA) to be undertaken when determining planning applications. EDP’s experience, however, is that there is wide variation between local authorities in terms of their preferred BIA methodology. The Defra metric, introduced during the pilot schemes, is often accepted, however, several authorities require more bespoke metrics, such as those devised by Warwickshire County Council and the Environment Bank. There is also considerable inconsistency regarding the costs of off-site compensation when a development is deemed to result in a net loss, and EDP has assisted several clients in successfully challenging disproportionately high offsetting costs at the application stage and at appeal.

In 2016, CIRIA, IEMA and CIEEM together published ‘Biodiversity Net Gain: Good practice principles for development’. This provides a useful set of starting principles including: application of the mitigation hierarchy; prioritising the protection of irreplaceable features (e.g.

ancient woodland); engaging with relevant stakeholders; and using robust, credible evidence and local knowledge in decision making. EDP welcomes this step towards a greater consistency in approach, but there is a long way to go to address the current postcode lottery.

EDP can advise on minimising biodiversity impacts as part of a green infrastructure-led approach, and can also negotiate with local authorities over BIA methods and offsetting schemes when required.

achieving biodiversitynet gain

James BirdSenior Ecologist

jamesb@edp-uk.co.uk

Cirencester Office01285 740427

ARTICLE BY:

TE

DP recently attended a Trees and Design Action Group meeting hosted by the Woodland Trust launching their ‘Charter for Trees, Woods and People’, on 06 November; the 800th

anniversary of the influential Charter of The Forest.

This groundbreaking initiative has collected the thoughts, stories and opinions from a vast demographic of people, and distilled ten simple principles. Encouraging planting, supporting our forestry sector and strengthening our landscapes with trees, are amongst the values identified.

These principles will be presented to the Government to provide a document appropriate for the underpinning policy and guidance going forward.

So far, over 86,000 signatures and the support of over 70 external organisations has been gathered in support of the Charter, with the woodland trust pledging to plant a tree for every signature gathered.

EDP has already noticed a slight shift in policy with Wycombe District Council, for example, introducing a 25% tree canopy cover policy for new developments in its emerging local plan.

charter for trees, woods and people

Tom CleetonConsultant Arboriculturist

tomc@edp-uk.co.uk

Cardiff Office02921 671900

ARTICLE BY:

E

For further details, and to support the Charter for Trees, Woods and People, please visit: https://treecharter.uk

Peter WiddringtonPrincipal Masterplannerpeterw@edp-uk.co.uk

Cirencester Office01285 740427

ARTICLE BY:

Luke TamblynPrincipal Arboriculturist

luket@edp-uk.co.uk

Cirencester Office01285 740427

ARTICLE BY:

ollowing the considerable effort and collaboration that goes into assessing, detailing, and the management

and protection of trees on a proposed development site, can the implementation of tree protection measures be jeopardised by information becoming lost in translation? There often appears to be a gap between the highly technical report that the planning team use as a tool in the discharge of the relevant planning conditions and the working document aimed at the site manager and construction team.

By the time work starts on site, the design team has developed a scheme formed on the baseline information, and the local authority planning team is satisfied that the proposal will work and complies with both local and national planning policy. In most situations, a planning condition secures the need for retained trees to be protected and a detailed methodology agreed. However, once works start on site, the volume and variety of tasks that need to be completed means that all too often, trees are overlooked.

Site managers are under considerable pressure with a volume of tasks to action and oversee. All too often, the methodology

for tree protection – Arboricultural Method Statement (AMS) – is read hurriedly at the start of the project to see where protective fencing needs to go, and then gets filed away in the site office, only to be dug out when a serious issue arises. When an issue does arise, in most cases, the responsible individual was not fully aware or misunderstood the AMS. Regardless of the reason, failure to adhere to the details of the approved tree protection measures will usually result in a breach of planning conditions. This can also lead to a breakdown of trust with the local planning authority, causing delays to the build programme, increased costs and enforcement action.

To help avoid this, EDP has developed a clear site poster (for the site office) and a clear plan based AMS, making the information more readily accessible for everyone involved. These simple measures will help all parties, from the ground-level up, understand the different types of tree protection measures required; developers can be reassured that the risk of breaching planning conditions is reduced, and local authority officers will be reassured that the measures required for tree protection have been read and understood.

Arboricultural supervision, along with tool box talks for specific technical tasks, are useful methods to ensure that the site team is supported in a pragmatic and timely manner, and can be implemented alongside or in addition to the above approach.

For a copy of EDP’s ‘Trees and Construction Poster’ please contact a member of the Arboriculture Team.

lost in translation

F

1

2

3

4

5

www.edp-uk .co .uk in fo@edp-uk .co .uk

At the time of publishing, the data held within this newsletter was deemed relevant and correct.

key con tac ts

Head of office: Tom Wigglesworth Tithe Barn, Barnsley Park Estate, Barnsley,

Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 5EG T 01285 740427

cirencester

Head of office: Dai Lewis First Floor, The Bonded Warehouse,

Atlantic Wharf, Cardiff CF10 4HFT 02921 671900

cardiff

Head of office: Gerard Dore The Stables, Sansaw Business Park,

Hadnall, Shrewsbury SY4 4AST 01939 211190

shrewsbury

new rec ru i t s

Zoe Haystead BSc (Hons) Assistant Consultant EcologistZoe joined EDP as a Seasonal Assistant Ecologist. She graduated her BSc Countryside and Environmental Management degree in 2014, and is currently studying for her Masters degree. Previous experience includes bat survey assistant and assistant ranger.

Neil Price BSc (Hons), MSc, PhD, MCIEEM Principal EcologistNeil has several years’ experience of working as an ecologist. He has led on a range of projects and has experience of surveying/mitigation design for a variety of species. He has also taught on university ecology courses and his varied experience, bringing a range of skills to EDP.

Rachel Aldred BArch (Hons), Dip Arch, MA Senior MasterplannerRachel has over ten years’ experience in the design and delivery of a range of projects, including neighbourhood masterplans, town centre frameworks and regeneration strategies, for both private and public-sector clients.

Natalie Halliday ReceptionistNatalie has been employed in customer-facing environments for a number of years. Having worked in a variety of sectors, both public and private, she has a wide range of administrative experience to bring to her role at EDP.

Jared Gilbey HND, BA (Hons) Landscape AssistantJared has over 20 years’ experience in commercial illustration and art practice. He is currently studying an MA in Landscape Architecture, and has become an integral part of EDP’s landscape design department.

Matt Evans BSc (Hons), Grad CIEEM Assistant Consultant EcologistMatt has four years’ experience in ecology consultancy, including two survey seasons at EDP. He has worked on a range of protected species surveys. He holds a Great Crested Newt licence and is currently working towards his other protected species licences.

Harriet Sharp BSc, MA Graduate Archaeology and Heritage ConsultantHarriet joined EDP with an MA in Archaeology, specialising in prehistory, from Durham University. She brings a varied set of skills, including graphics and transport planning experience, that will enhance her abilities in the heritage team.

Frances Bennett BSc (Hons), MSc, ACIEEM Consultant EcologistFrances joined EDP in July 2017 with five years’ experience in ecology consultancy. Her experience is based on surveying and mitigating for protected species, with a particular interest in bats. In addition, Frances brings with her extensive knowledge of GIS systems.

Georgia Lewis BA (Hons) ReceptionistGeorgia travelled for three years after leaving University, which included working in Australia and New Zealand, in roles such as a restaurant manager and a medical administrator. After returning to Wales, she joined EDP as the Cardiff office receptionist.

Emma Slater AdministratorEmma has many years’ experience in client-facing roles, including working with English Heritage at a site in Shropshire. Emma has a background in archaeology, which assists her in providing admin support to the Shrewsbury office.

Clare Curwen-Jones Ecology AdministratorClare has 20 years’ experience in a wide range of support positions, ranging from office management to PA roles. Clare provides admin and finance support to EDP’s ecology resources team and finance departments.

Clare Roberts Senior Graphics ConsultantClare has worked in the environmental consultancy industry for 17 years, providing graphics support. Clare brings to EDP a variety of graphic design skills, including infographic design, desktop publishing and web design, plus figure creation using AutoCAD and GIS.

s a result of EDP’s work designing settlement edges in sensitive and protected landscapes, we have developed a toolkit to assist the planning and design process.

The toolkit includes:1. A field survey proforma for Landscape Architects and

Masterplanners to describe and assess settlement edges using a common language.

2. A reference guide to describe EDP’s approach to assessing and designing development at the edge of settlements.

EDP has a long-standing involvement with promoting environmentally-led settlement extensions (from large to small scale) through the early stages of the planning process to outline consent and detailed design. EDP understand that the design of a proposed settlement edge is critically important to helping gain planning consent. EDP has assisted clients gain permission in a

number of smaller settlements in highly sensitive, often protected, landscapes in a manner that is responsive to the local landscape character and visual amenity. Based on successful project experience, EDP has documented a methodology to learn lessons and help ensure consistency in support of our clients’ objectives. We have been able to do this by leveraging our cross-disciplinary design skills that enables:

a) A consistent and objective assessment of the existing settlement edge; and

b) Design guidance for the new settlement edge showing how specific landscape ‘elements’ have defined historic settlement growth and can be used to create an appropriate edge character.

The toolkit is based on a study of villages (where the juxtaposition of periods is often most obvious), but the method is now being applied to larger towns.

Richard CrooksPrincipal Landscape

Architectrichardc@edp-uk.co.uk

Cirencester Office01285 740427

ARTICLE BY:

the edp settlement edge toolkit

A