Environment & Climate Change
66
4.3
Spatial planning & policy
Keywords
Spatial planning, impact assessment, policy integration,
territorial and marine policy
Expertise
Where is the best place for a new housing estate? What
will the presence of a nuclear power station have on a
remote stretch of coastline? Land is a critical resource for
farming and industry, providing space to work and play.
There are increasing discussions around the way we use
land as a critical resource; spatial planning provides a
mechanism for debating whose interests are being served
by the decisions we make about the use of land, as well
as the resources within and under the sea.
Bringing together expertise from planners, oceano-
graphers, marine biologists and climate change
specialists, the University develops new spatial planning
principles, processes and partnerships. We also explore
the burgeoning discipline of marine spatial planning,
taking the same debates to assess the localisation and
impact of activities in and under the sea. We work
with many policy-orientated organisations to provide
critical thinking and reflection on how to make
informed decisions.
We have worked extensively with a variety of different
stakeholders (public, private and third sector) at home
and abroad to develop territorial and marine impact
assessments. We are also contributing our knowledge
to a major evaluation of the planning system in England
and developing tools to assess the many impacts of
planning decisions.
The Mersey Forest
Green spaces in and around large conurbations are
often few and far between yet if you measure their
total land area, you often discover that your
dispersed areas of trees and scrub are as big as
a forest. This is the concept of the Mersey Forest,
an organisation and concept that views the green
spaces of Merseyside as a single environmental
whole, albeit fragmented across a wide area. Spatial
and environmental planners from the University of
Liverpool work with the Mersey Forest on the
development of a green infrastructure mapping
toolkit which has been applied to Liverpool and
other parts of Merseyside. The research has helped
Mersey Forest to plan and create green corridors to
link section of the forest together.
Capabilities and facilities
•
Expertise on spatial planning policies and practices
•
Training on international impact assessment and
planning practice
•
Advice on sustainable environmental planning
•
Environmental, strategic and health impact
assessments
•
Decision support tools and modelling to assess
the potential impacts of planning decisions
•
Spatial analysis and GIS expertise
•
Application of impact assessments to strategic
policy development.
•
Relevant centres and groups
•
International Health Impact Assessment Consortium
(
IMPACT).
For further information
on all our specialist
centres, facilities and
laboratories
go to page
179
