An Integrated Approach to Sustainable Urban Redevelopment: Birmingham Eastside as a National Demonstrator

Completed

Energy Efficiency(Residential and commercial)
Energy Efficiency(Transport)
Energy Efficiency(Industry)
Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts)

Basic and strategic applied research

SOCIAL SCIENCES (Town and Country Planning)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Civil Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Architecture and the Built Environment)

Not Cross-cutting
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Environmental dimensions)
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Consumer attitudes and behaviour)
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Technology acceptance)

Professor CDF Rogers
Infra. Engineering & Management
University of Birmingham

Standard

EPSRC

01 November 2004

31 December 2006

26 months

£415,090

Civil eng. & built environment

West Midlands

Infrastructure and Environment -- Process Environment and Sustainability

Professor CDF Rogers, Infra. Engineering & Management, University of Birmingham

Dr A Barber, School of Public Policy - CURS, University of Birmingham
Professor JR Bryson, Sch of Geography, Earth & Env Sciences, University of Birmingham
Dr R Coles, Sch of Architecture, Birmingham City University
Dr L Jankovic, Sch of Architecture, Birmingham City University
Dr I Jefferson, Civil Engineering, University of Birmingham
Dr JP Sadler, Sch of Geography, Earth & Env Sciences, University of Birmingham

Dr RG Donovan, University of Birmingham
Mr DV Hunt, University of Birmingham
Dr L Porter, University of Birmingham
Dr SB Taylor, University of Birmingham

Project Contact, Groundwork (Birmingham)
Project Contact, Birmingham City Council
Project Contact, Environmental Agency
Project Contact, Luxembourg Institute of Health

Grants EP/C513177/1, EP/E021956/1 and EP/E021603/1 are linked to each other

This research proposal is for an extension to a Sustainable Urban Environment Scoping Study that is exploring the feasibility of adopting Birmingham Eastside as a Demonstrator of Sustainable Urban Redevelopment (GR/S20482, which employs four Research Fellows, started in May 2003 and will finish in October 2004). The current project is being carried out by researchers from a wide range of academic disciplines (ranging from engineers to environmental geographers to social economists) and has its primary focus on the barriers to and enablers of sustainable urban redevelopment. The current study is limited to two contrasting parts of the large Eastside area that is undergoing redevelopment (the Masshouse Area and City Park), but went through the planning stages well before the research project started. There are already many interesting findings, which have firmly established the feasibility of the site as an excellent national, and indeed international, demonstrator. Much informationhas been collected on the Eastside development (www.esr.bham.ac.uk) and a library has been established in the base room at the University of Birmingham, where there is office space and meeting facilities for housing permanent and visiting researchers. This extension will utilise the strong multi-disciplinary research partnership established between the Universities of Birmingham (UoB) and Central England (UCE) and build upon its extensive network of contacts, including key stakeholders, policy-makers, private developers, and community-based and non-governmental organisations. By focusing upon two current developments, the existing study has both identified a hierarchy of specific and generic barriers to achieving sustainable urban redevelopment, and highlighted possible ways of overcoming them (i.e. enablers). The most important barrier to achieving sustainability (which is being considered in its broadest sense based around the three social, environmental and economic pillars )wasidentified as the decision-making process, where sustainability either becomes central (or not) to the future of the city. The proposed research will therefore explore the complex issues surrounding the barriers and enablers at the time of decision-making and develop datasets that span across the disciplines and show trends of development with time. These datasets will facilitate decision-making in Eastside which will be made available to stakeholders and decision-makers at the earliest stages,which will further help to promote sustainable thinking within Eastside. It will also provide the basis of an extensive set of information for researchers working on other sustainability projects to use to test their theories and provide valuable indicators for future research work. Perhaps of most importance is the fact that the focus of this new project is on three developments in the planning stage where an impact can be made and where the dynamics of barrier formation during decision-making can beexplored in real time, rather than in hindsight

01/01/07