Water and wildlife = wellbeing
SFHA's virtual Development Conference, taking place on 16 and 17 September, over two half-day sessions, will discuss three projects that received funding from last year’s Social Housing and Green Infrastructure Fund - a partnership between SFHA, NatureScot, Architecture + Design Scotland and the Scottish Government. The fund was created to support place-design that maximises the benefits of green infrastructure in social housing across Scotland. Ivan Clark, Placemaking Team Manager, NatureScot, discusses the Southside Housing Association project.
Southside Housing Association, in partnership with NatureScot, the local community and Glasgow City Council, is transforming a currently underused open space in Glasgow to help manage surface water and create new opportunities for people and wildlife.
The space around the two high-rise blocks at Queensland Court and Gardens, Cardonald, suffers from excess surface water making the outdoor space limited and often unusable. In addition, the area has poor parking facilities and limited play opportunities for young families. This is set to change, with an investment award of £537,215 from the ERDF Green Infrastructure Fund. This will transform the green space, improve play facilities and parking as well as help to manage extreme rainfall events that are likely to become more common as a consequence of climate change. Queensland Court and Gardens is also benefitting from being a pilot site for the 10,000 Raingardens for Scotland’ project.
Since the award from the Social Housing and Green Infrastructure Fund was made last August, a design team, comprising SWECO, RaeburnFarquharBowen and Glasgow City Council Flood Management Team have been working with the community to design improvements including a surface water attenuation basin to reduce flooding risk, new accessible paths (including stepping stones over the basin), and a natural adventure play area.
In addition, Southside Housing Association will be submitting the project for a ‘Building with Nature Award’. This will assess the project in terms of its contribution to ‘the three Ws,’ wildlife, water and wellbeing. The design team is also contributing to a SNH/SFHA project exploring the costs and benefits of such interventions. In particular, the team will be quantifying the long-term maintenance cost of the new green infrastructure compared to maintaining the current ‘mown-lawn’ approach to landscaping.
Find out more about this project at this year’s SFHA virtual Development Conference which is taking place over two half-day sessions on 16 and 17 September.
Why attend?
- Hear about housing’s role in the recovery from Covid-19, economically and environmentally
- See practice case studies from RSLs already developing green infrastructure sites
- A chance to explore how RSLs and the construction industry can work together on sustainable development
The virtual conference will feature a series of live and recorded sessions that will take place over two half-days on 16 and 17 September. Sessions will be in the morning on day one and in the afternoon on day two.
Virtual Q&As, chat and polling will help to create an innovative interactive experience for delegates. You can also access on demand content from virtual conferences for three months after the event, so you can watch at anytime, and anywhere, that’s convenient to you.
Rates start at £125 to attend one half-day for SFHA members and £170 for non members. If you book to attend both half-days, you will save £30.
You book your place at the conference, please visit the SFHA Live! section of our website.
A few days before the conference, you will be sent a link to access SFHA's new interactive conference hub. If you have any questions, please contact SFHA's events team on events@sfha.co.uk.