Working together: urban communities as sustainable places
2nd May 2012
The Sustainable Places Research Institute team recently helped organise the event ‘working together: urban communities as sustainable places’.
The conference brought together a range of practitioners, policy makers and academics in order to share their experience, views, and ideas on what the opportunities and challenges are for achieving a more joined-up approach to improving the social, economic and environmental wellbeing of urban communities in Wales. At the same time the event also provided practitioners with an opportunity to feed into the development of Welsh Government policy addressing urban communities and sustainable development in Wales.
The event Chair, Prof. Ken Peattie, welcomed delegates outlining the significance of ‘place’ in the pursuit of sustainable development. The day was split into two parts, the first was a series of short formal presentations from a range of different speakers, including government, community practitioner, and university; the second part was dedicated to participant discussion, facilitated through workshop sessions and then an expert-panel style debate. The formal presentations included a talk from Brook Lyndhurst Consulting in which they disseminated initial findings from recent case study work commissioned by the Welsh Government Sustainable Places division, on urban community sustainability projects from around the UK, and the potential for developing a more integrated approach to stakeholder engagement. During the afternoon workshops and panel discussion participants worked together in developing proposals for improving the integration of national policy, and how it is best delivered at the local level; they also considered the practical role that research can play in urban community work.
A report of the conference proceedings is available to download.
The working together: urban communities as sustainable communities conference was organised by the Sustainable Places Division of Welsh Government, working in collaboration with the Sustainable Places Research Institute of Cardiff University. The event took place on March 26th 2012 in the Parc Thistle Hotel, Park Place, Cardiff.