ReVISIONS - Regional Visions of Integrated Sustainable Infrastructure Optimised for NeighbourhoodS
The ReVISIONS project aims to provide the knowledge and evidence base for public agencies and private companies to plan regional development together with infrastructure for transport, water, waste and energy (ranging from large capital schemes to small scale decentralised services), in a more coordinated and integrated way so as to maximise economic competitiveness, reduce impacts on the environment and resources, and allow households to live more sustainably, with a socially inclusive and enhanced quality of life. It will devise and test alternative regional spatial strategies integrated across infrastructure sectors and spatial scales to investigate to what extent infrastructure selection, investment, regulation, and pricing can help to achieve more sustainable ways of living.
At the regional scale these options will range from focussing new development on the core city of the region, to allocating most of the new dwellings within planned new developments dispersed throughout the region. Regional policies affect the location of development and the density of housing and hence the demand for transport, energy, water and waste services, which has major implications for infrastructure provision. Whilst regional policies can enhance the sustainability of the allocation of land and movement of resources at the regional scale, they also risk constraining sustainable development through limiting opportunities for sustainable action at the local scale. Local solutions clearly have implications at the regional level (via aggregate demand for travel and resources, and waste flows), and have an important role in making efficient use of existing infrastructure capacity and obviating the need for potentially unsustainable capital works. These local sustainability improvements will be re-aggregated to estimate the impacts at the regional level for each of these integrated regional options. The research will be based on case studies of the Greater South East regions, (London, East and South East of England), and contrasted with a case study of a lower growth more polycentric region, such as the North East of England. The research will be carried out in parallel with similar case studies of city regions in other parts of the world to compare and contrast regions of similar size to the Greater South East but at different stages of development. These cases studies will include Beijing, Sao Paulo, and possibly Los Angeles.
Each option will be assessed across a wide range of criteria encompassing environmental impacts, use of resources, economy, social inclusion, health, and other quality of life factors. The options will be compared within a multi-criteria assessment framework in full consultation with end users and stakeholders. This will identify the most robust options that perform well for different value judgements and different future scenarios. The research will deliver generic normative guidance and decision support tools for use by central and regional government departments and agencies, regional assemblies, utility companies, developers, planners and designers.
The ReVISIONS research builds directly upon the SOLUTIONS, WaND, and SUE-Waste projects of the EPSRC Sustainable Urban Environments (SUE1) programme and, the EPSRC SUPERGEN project. The ReVISIONS project will identify where further sustainability gains can be achieved from understanding how to trade-off the competing sustainability requirements of the different infrastructure sectors, and identify potential synergies.
The ReVISIONS project commences in April 2008 for 4 years and the consortium consists of 7 academic partners along with the Department for Communities and local Government (DCLG), Department for Transport (DfT), Environment Agency, two major water companies and the Regional Assemblies and Regional Development Agencies for the case study sites.
WEBSITE: http://www.regionalvisions.ac.uk/
DOCUMENT DOWNLOAD: Revisions brochure