The Stocksbridge Case Study

The Task and the Team The STEP team started by trying to find out what other people were doing locally and found several schemes, mainly dealing with local waste management or with native planting to improve biodiversity. The schemes were all useful but they seemed to occur sporadically and each only to address a small part of the issues related to sustainable urban areas. The idea gradually developed that a different approach could be tried for Stocksbridge, one that through being based on a thorough understanding of the present local environmental situation could be more co-ordinated and could have more clearly defined long-term goals and in particular one that, through giving a clear sense of direction, would stimulate local people into making their homes, gardens and local open spaces function more sustainably. The team aimed to produce a local community level Environmental Plan. The timescale is short, as the study is to be completed by January 1999, and the manpower resources very limited. By January the aim is to identify priorities for environmental projects.

Based on the ideas set out in her book: Environmental Planning for Site Development, A.R.Beer, Routledge, (2nd edition forthcoming 1999). The Stocksbridge study is being undertaken under the occasional guidance of an experienced environmental planner (Prof. A. R. Beer, MRTPI) - most of the on-ground work is initially being done by young graduates employed by STEP, from the Landscape Department at the University of Sheffield and by two students from the urban planning course at the University of Utrecht as part of their work experience. The data gathered by these groups and its analysis is being used to provide the basis for a new Case Study on local community level Environmental Planning to be included in the second edition of the book.

 

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updated 18 Nov 1998