Sustainable Hackney was consulted on our views for the next Greener Hackney event.  This is what we said:

We think the best thing to concentrate on at the next greener Hackney event is the built environment and the governance issues associated with it.

There is considerable conflict over the extent, quality and direction and it would be useful to discuss this with the planning department and politicians.

The issues:

Higher rise in a low rise environment: pros and cons and alternatives

Over development – why is Hackney so far ahead of its target? The London Plan is supposed to share out the development: The graph below is taken from Hackney's Annual  Monitoring report for 2010-11 (p113) and shows that Hackney is well ahead of the London Plan target for the number of new dwellings in the borough.  For the full report see http://www.hackney.gov.uk/Assets/Documents/AMR-2010-11.pdf

Quality – there is much concern about the poor quality of developments. 

Maybe we could have some input from outside the borough, possibly:

Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments, University of the West of England, http://www.bne.uwe.ac.uk/cep/default.asp

School of Environment and Development, The University of Manchester

(See Professor Graham Haughton ‘Sustainable Cities’ http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=fCPLaqByXMIC&a...

Building Research Establishment

And this is the reply we received:

Many thanks for your email – I’m sorry it has taken me a little while to come back to you on this – I’ve been discussing it with James Palmer and Cllr Linden.

I agree that this is a hot topic at the moment, and one on which people have strong views.  However, I want the Greener Hackney event itself to remain broad and inclusive of a whole range of “green” issues, as well as to focus on the practical ways in which we can work better in partnership, and for these reasons I am reluctant to devote the event to this issue.

However, I wanted to let you know that, following the SCS review to which I know you contributed, this is something we are thinking hard about. This work is being led by Sonia Khan’s team, with input from across the council (but especially from Planning), and is at the request of the Chief Executive.

Best wishes

And this is the proposal for the next Greener Hackney event - any views? 

We are proposing something along the lines of the previous event, with three main sections, plus time for visiting stalls and meeting new people:

update from us about what has happened since the last meeting, including progress on specific issues raised in October

1. short presentations from a small number of local groups who have recently won funding – what they are planning to do and how people can get involved
2. breakout sessions around specific topics to identify opportunities for partnership work and areas in which the council can make life easier for (and support) small groups trying to run green projects in Hackney

I want the focus to be on positive and practical ways we can work together.  We really valued the feedback and ideas people gave us at the last event in October and want to continue in that vein.

It would be great if you were able to share this with the SH steering group on Wednesday and let me know their thoughts.