South Essex Green and Blue Infrastructure Study

Landscape Architect Alexandra Steed outlines her practice’s award-winning work in South Essex

These are challenging times. Humanity is being called upon to think differently to address the world’s environmental, economic and social issues.

To meet these increasing environmental pressures while also meeting significant growth demands, the Association of South Essex Local Authorities (ASELA), comprising the seven local authorities covering South Essex, are working together to make a difference. The intention is to create a forward-thinking Joint Strategic Framework for this vulnerable area covering some 70,000 hectares. The Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) Study will form a crucial part of the spatial plan and will help to prepare the community for the future by addressing ecological, economic, and social factors that exist today.

The need for an integrated, multifunctional and cross-boundary GBI strategy has been recognised as a priority to embed in local plans, to support healthier communities, sustainable travel and high-quality open spaces, while also protecting habitats and natural processes. It will help transform the context in which physical development occurs, creating an adaptive landscape and spaces to breathe and enjoy.

But more than simply auditing and incorporating good design practices, the South Essex GBI Study raises the bar for landscape planning. It sets an ambitious vision for living infrastructure as a unifying framework: a porous infrastructure that allows for adaptation of large-scale areas of landscape that are projected to transform due to sealevel rise, increased flooding and other climate-induced change.

South Essex is reimagined as a single and vast parkland system referred to as South Essex Estuary Park (SEEPARK), which not only protects what already exists, but sets out a vision for what South Essex will be in the future.

SEEPARK will perform as a model of adaptability and resilience and will holistically address 21st century challenges through its green and blue spaces which will facilitate:

– Improving health, well-being, and air quality

– Improving walking and cycling access to open space

– Restoring biodiversity and ecosystems – Mitigating climate change and flooding – Transitioning to net zero carbon

– Stimulating eco-tourism and green job creation and a more buoyant economy.

SEEPARK emerges out of a demand for innovative practices in planning, pioneering a strategic landscape approach that integrates natural systems, built environment and social equity to create an extraordinary place. The establishment of SEEPARK also fits into a wider plan set out in the Thames Estuary Growth Commission’s 2050 Vision for the creation of the Great Thames Park. The Study sets out how SEEPARK could become the first phase north of the river. The concept of living within a parkland setting, close to a great metropolitan centre, presents an attractive offer for investment, accommodating homes and businesses within plentiful cultural and leisure activities. The GBI Study identifies the importance of a business plan to communicate, educate, brand, market and provide continued research to convey the vision and to provide the necessary backing to turn the SEEPARK vision into a reality.

SEE Park Pathfinder

© Alexandra Steed Urban

SEE Park Pathfinder

© Alexandra Steed Urban

SEE Park Pathfinder

© Alexandra Steed Urban

The South Essex Green and Blue Infrastructure Study presents a radical vision of how planning process can boldly utilise GBI to meet the challenges of our time. This study creates an exemplary model of adaptable and resilient infrastructure, not only for South Essex and London, but for other estuary communities around the world.