🗓 Date: Tuesday, 27 September 2022
⏳ Time: 8:00
📍Location: Lower Galleria Room 1, ACC Liverpool, Kings Dock Street, Liverpool, England, L3 4FP
SME4Labour and Ackroyd Lowrie Breakfast Club: Future cities – How can regeneration be done sustainably?
Event summary:
We opened Tuesday with an edition of Ackroyd Lowrie breakfast clubs. The ambition of Ackroyd Lowrie was to step outside of the normal role of architects, to engage with those decision makers that can influence the way our cities evolve, rather than just waiting for commissions within Masterplans that have already been decided.
The discussion revolved around four issues.
1. Retrofit first: It seems obvious that the priority of this country to save energy and also mitigate the cost of living crisis is to fund the upgrade of all existing housing stock (rather than massive tax cuts!)
2. De-carbonise the grid: This will mean we can switch to electric and run domestic and industrial supplies from renewable sources (this one must have been leaked before the conference, as Sir Keir included it in his speech!)
3. 15 Minute Cities: In France, the unwritten rule is that no person should be more than 15 minute from a Boulangerie for their daily bread. It makes sense to plan cities to avoid the need for vehicular trips. (Thanks to Dan Jestico for the baguette story!)
4. Reintroduce a Green Urban Task Force to develop a vision for sustainable cities: Only if we agree on a vision can we put in place strategies and policies to achieve them.
If we’re going to build the cities of the future, we need politicians to focus on a vision for how sustainable cities can be, and then implement strategies and policies to deliver them. If they do this, then cities can provide the solution to the housing, energy, and cost of living crises. Covid proved that crises can elicit radical and coordinated responses. It’s time for the next one!
For this event we were joined by: Dan Norris, Metro Mayor for the West of England, Nik Johnson, Metro Mayor of Cambridge & Peterborough, Mike Reader, MACE, Andrew Taylor FRTPI, Countryside PLC and our Chair Alex Mayer.
