Bassetlaw Green Infrastructure Mentoring
Objectives
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Bassetlaw is a relatively rural district in North Nottinghamshire, whose principal town is Worksop. It is located outside of the main East Midlands strategic growth areas, although nonetheless its council aspires to engage with green infrastructure as a positive planning tool to inform the District's emerging Local Development Framework.
Bassetlaw DC instructed LGL to assist with the development of a Green Infrastructure Strategy for the District through an internal mentoring process, drawing upon LGL's experience and established methodologies in preparing green infrastructure strategies at this scale. This process involved Senior Environmental Consultant Ian Dudley joining a team within the Council's planning policy department for a number of focused sessions as a specialist advisor.
Outcomes
The principal outcome of this project was the successful internal production of Bassetlaw's Green Infrastructure Strategy, although this process also yielded a number of additional merits, namely:
1) The internalisation of this process deliver a significantly greater level of cost-effectiveness to the District Council compared to the traditional model of tendering out these documents.
2) The production of the document by the Council's planning policy officers meant that they were able to learn from the process and are now empowered to take it forward independently.
3) The internal production of the Strategy meant that the Council had full ownership of the document and process at every stage and therefore it could be more effectively integrated into the Local Development Framework and represented to senior officers and elected members.
Future
Having successfully prepared the Strategy, the Council is now engaging with other Council departments and key stakeholders to bring together an Action Plan for its implementation, demonstrating the early benefits of cross-sector working that a green infrastructure based approach can deliver.
Testimonial
'Bassetlaw's overall experience of working with Lockhart Garratt has been extremely positive. Rather than operating in the typical 'consultancy' role, having provided a methodology and framework to help establish the extent of the existing strategic green infrastructure network, Ian Dudley spent a number of sessions working with staff in the Planning department as a 'mentor'. In leading on the project I have benefited a great deal from working with Ian who, in sharing his knowledge of green infrastructure, equipped me to undertake the main body of work myself. This approach has given the flexibility of developing a strategy that is tailored to the District's needs and given me the skills and hands-on experience to progress and implement the strategy, in terms of writing robust policies for the Local Development Framework and working with colleagues in the wider council and other stakeholders'.
Tim Dawson, Planning Officer (Policy), Bassetlaw District Council
[BACK] [For more information on this case study, please contact Ian Dudley BSc (Hons), MICFor, CEnv]
