Shape Newham delivery of greening and sustainability public space infrastructure Update

The Shape Newham project, launched in 2019 to make improvements to the public realm* has now reached its conclusion in the Green Street area.

As a reminder from our 4 March 2020 news update, group member, Celia attended a series of workshops held across the London Borough of Newham.

She took part in exercises designed to choose locations and priorities for each project, always with a view to promoting those which were most likely to achieve favourable outcomes for climate change mitigation and biodiversity.

As part of this process, Celia made suggestions on behalf of ClimateYouChange. These included greening measures - extra tree planting (ideally in-ground to improve carbon drawdown), increasing food growing spaces, wildflowers and year-round pollinator-friendly plants.

ClimateYouChange suggestions also related to retainment of existing equipment/structures with repairs and refurbishment instead of replacements, re-use of existing materials in any new fabrications, plus improved cycling infrastructure.

At the end of the workshops Celia was invited to be a member of the Shape Newham Design Committee. Taking place from January – March 2020, these sessions provided the opportunity to firm up on locations from the final remaining options.

Working together with AOC architect, Francesca Merton, her colleagues, designers and the other committee members, Celia was able to further champion ClimateYouChange priorities, as part of the co-design process.

Starting in late 2023/early 2024, the agreed upon designs have now been installed/made. These include the following elements requested by Celia on behalf of ClimateYouChange:

• Cycle stands. (A couple of the other committee members were also behind these.)

• Streetlights have now been refurbished, crucially minimising the use of new materials. (Reducing numbers of completely new structures was an important objective for ClimateYouChange.)

• Extra trees and wildflowers have been planted in new tree pits, further to car parking spaces being reappropriated for pedestrian and green spaces.

Whilst these changes were modest in scale, it showed that community involvement in council projects can effect change and that if enough people get involved to protect our planet from climate change that we can multiply such changes!

It’s worth noting here, that one of the committee members vetoed the suggestion of an area of large wildflower filled planters. The member was unhappy that a café situated the other side of the pavement would have needed to be given sole customer access to seating running alongside the planters, in exchange for the business owners maintaining the planting. The upshot was a share of nothing, instead of a compromised share of something, with essential help for pollinators!

This is one of the many reasons that we need to get more people involved in co-design projects, to increase the chance of common-sense prevailing in the face of the climate crisis. The more reality-driven voices which are heard, the better!

* This refers to all publicly accessible spaces in urban areas, including both outdoor spaces; streets, footpaths, squares, parks, waterways etc., and indoor areas, such as station platforms and shopping centres.