RESTORE’s Post

LAND360 in action!🌱 Helmingham Estate in Suffolk used LAND360 to establish and assess its natural capital baseline to support the Estate's journey towards driving long-term environmental sustainability and profitability. The mapping process revealed it had over 3,000 distinct habitat parcels across the whole estate. Across 2,000ha of land, these parcels encompassed: • The home farm of 800ha • 135ha parkland • 50 meadows which average 2ha each and are situated outside the parkland • 70ha of woodland – which includes lots of hedgerows due to field layouts Starting on this journey means the Estate can identify good and poor-quality habitats. Helping to futureproof for future generations, so it is vital to know what they are starting with and its potential. Watch the video below to learn more about the natural capital baselining process at Helmingham, or read more here: https://hubs.ly/Q02_nd7S0 #LAND360 #LandManagement #NaturalCapital #EstateManagement

A brighter future lies ahead.

Follow the link below to follow the official Britbuild Magazine account, as well as take a look at our upcoming webinar focusing on effective BNG strategies for SME developers

Exciting times at Kensham Farm, Kent! 🌱     After a lot of work going on behind the scenes, we're delighted to announce the start of our journey at Kensham Farm in Kent. This is the first step in transforming this 69-acre ex-arable farm for Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG). We are providing 150 BNG units (fractional and full) for developers seeking to meet their BNG obligations.   Nestled within both the High Weald and Romney Marshes National Character Area (NCA), this land has a rich history, once used for a mix of sheep grazing, arable, and hop farming. Today, the ecological baseline provides great potential:   🌾 Species-poor grassland 🍏 Ancient orchard in need of restoration 💧 Converging streams lined with trees forming part of the River Rother catchment 🐦 Two ponds needing enhancement 🌳 Pockets of woodland 🐜 And lots and lots of Yellow Meadow ant hills!   Phase one is already in motion, with woodland management and coppicing scheduled for late winter. Come early spring, we’ll begin grassland management across the farm. Additionally, restoration work to the ancient orchard will begin, followed by new plantings and an expansion with a new orchard in the neighbouring field.      A heartfelt thank you to everyone who's supported us along the way - Tunbridge Wells Borough Council, Ashford Borough Council, Triodos Bank, our strategic advisors Bruce Davis, Lucy Almond and Mark Maslin, Lambert & Foster Ltd, Impact47, Saffery's Natural Capital Team, Ecosulis, TWM Solicitors LLP, Sussex Nature Partnership and RESTORE. Also a big thank you to our supportive private investors (you know who you are).   We can’t wait to share the journey with you all. Stay tuned for more updates from Kensham Farm! 👀     #BNG #Kent #MakingNatureGreatAgain #biodiversity #habitat #habitatbank #ecology #sustainability #naturerestoration #TunbridgeWells #Ashford

Best Practice Playbook: Revitalizing Kansas City's Rock Island Bridge The Rock Island Bridge in Kansas City, originally commissioned in 1905, is being transformed into an entertainment and dining destination, highlighting adaptive reuse in urban environments. Revitalizing the Rock Island Bridge illustrates how cities can repurpose aging infrastructure to enhance community engagement, historical preservation, and economic growth. This project demonstrates a successful collaboration between public, private, and philanthropic entities, showcasing a "4P" partnership model. By connecting neighborhoods and creating a multifunctional public space, the bridge fosters a dynamic interaction with the urban landscape and promotes environmental resilience through its integration with trail systems and parks. Innovative projects like the Rock Island Bridge exemplify how cities can creatively repurpose historical structures to benefit communities. While not every city has a bridge to transform, this project inspires thinking outside the box to develop unique, impactful urban spaces.

We are thrilled to announce that we have exchanged contracts and secured unanimous planning approval for a new development in Ingleby Barwick. In partnership with Persimmon Homes, Keepmoat's share of the development extends to circa 20.84 acres, and will deliver 164 homes, including 64 affordable homes in collaboration with Thirteen Group. Ian Worgan, Regional Managing Director, shared his excitement: “We’re thrilled to be working in partnership with Persimmon to deliver the multi-tenure, energy-efficient properties, to help boost housing supply and meet the housing needs of local residents. The development will bring a range of environmental and economic benefits, including robust pedestrian access to Ingleby Barwick, improved road infrastructure and bus services, along with biodiversity net gain to support local wildlife and natural habitats, in line with the Government’s Environment Bill. We’re looking forward to starting work on site to begin bringing the scheme to life.” 🏡🌳 #keepmoat #keepmoathomes #InglebyBarwick #newdevelopment #affordablehousing #sustainability #partnershipbuilding #housingsupply #contractsexchanged

Crossways Farm Village, located 40km from Gqeberha near Van Staden’s Bridge, borders the Garden Route and Baviaanskloof World Heritage Site. Launched by landscape architect and property developer Chris Mulder in 2010, this unique development combines agribusiness with sustainable living. In 2019, agribusiness entrepreneur David Osborne became a major shareholder. The village offers comprehensive infrastructure, including roads, water, sewerage, power, fibre optics, and security, establishing it as a 'new rural town.' Read or listen to this story in the November issue of Asset - https://lnkd.in/dEisQWCG Octavia Avesca Spandiel #ruraltown #agrivillage #sustianableliving

Labour's plans to build 1.5 million homes a year rely on an gambit: that we can increase construction and protect biodiversity with ecological mitigations, including BNG. But are developers actually installing these ecological features on the ground? This summer we decided to find out. We visited 42 new build housing estates in 5 LPAs and we compared the planning conditions for each site with what was there in real life. We uncovered a scandal. Only 53% of ecological mitigations are present. When you exclude street trees, this falls to 34%. Our findings call the whole of the government's agenda into question. After all, despite their attempts to trivialise biodiversity loss by arguing that it's newts and bats versus housing for people, most people have realised that we live in an interconnected world. Humans cannot thrive without healthy ecosystems. For example, we know that habitat degradation may lead to a loss of GDP in the UK by the 2030s that far outweighs the financial crisis or the economic shock of COVID. The social impacts of that will be huge. To make matters worse, I don't know a single housing or planning scholar who seriously thinks the government's strategy is actually going to work in terms of reducing house prices, or even increasing supply to the degree that they anticipate. They aren't listening to housing experts, but are instead ploughing ahead with a disastrous series of planning policies that will not work because they are based on a simplistic understanding of housing economics. So the reforms are putting nature in peril for no gain - and they're seriously anti-democratic too. This isn't nature v people. It's a Labour government funnelling money to developers and landowners, and against both our wildlife and communities. It won't even help people who need houses, and it politically naive too: it could well cost Labour a lot of the rural seats it just won. This is such a deeply frustrating situation. https://lnkd.in/ebDiXfyc

Kiera has managed to express more eloquently than me (and with far fewer four letter expletives) the frustration - and (for me at least), the feeling of abject betrayal - by a Labour Government that seems hell-bent on pitching people against nature. This is amplified by the announcement today by DEFRA that they are going to undertake a ‘wholesale review’ of biodiversity net gain… The findings of Kiera’s paper are almost exactly the same as another forthcoming article led by Ian Thornhill MCIEEM that shows developers are not delivering on their legal commitments to deliver for nature. The Government know that there a suite of reasons that mean house prices are high and that there is not enough housing for people that want ‘new’ houses in the UK. Other reasons include (but are not limited to): - developers and volume house builders ‘land banking’; holding on to large areas of land that already have planning permission but are not currently deemed profitable enough to develop - that the appeal of developing on greenfield sites for volume housebuilders is far greater than developing on brownfield - that there are delapidated housing estates in towns and cities across the country that people don’t want to live in but which could be regenerated or redeveloped to provide affordable housing Most depressing is that Kier Starmer, Angela Rayner et al are not stupid, they have just ‘lent their ears’ to only one side of the debate: the developers. These new attacks on planning policies and their protection of nature have nothing whatsoever to do with housing supply or demand (if they did, their reforms would be inextricably linked with delivering affordable housing rather than merely eulogising that this is what they want). Instead, their current attack of planning policy is entirely about a misfounded idea that getting the development sector producing houses at scale will boost the economy - plain and simple. So what for nature? In the midst of a biodiversity crisis, we need strong leadership that recognises the nuance needed for development- there is no silver bullet to rectifying the need for housing. But pitching this as a war against nature is about as short-sighted as building a house for your kids’ inheritance that has an explosive device with a timer in it. As well as growing the economy we have a commitment to protecting 30% or our land for nature by 2030. We could have been the country that tried to take a lead on this - a complex issue bound up with a myriad of challenges but eminently worth fighting for. Instead, with the very little time we have left to make a difference and transform people’s attitudes towards nature, Labour have decided to destroy it for short-term economic gain. #conservativesalloveragain

Groundwork New Orleans’ Green Team will inventory brownfield sites, assess conditions like heat and flooding, and conduct community interviews to identify opportunities for green infrastructure and new green spaces!