We all know the benefits and just how essential it is that we move towards Eco and carbon friendly homes and the Campaign support this move totally.
We would however advocate taking a step further.
More and more people live their lives with little or no contact with nature. This disconnection affects mental health, contributes to obesity and even has an impact on life expectancy. Integrating nature into the built environment can help to address these problems, but developments have often missed opportunities to make neighbourhoods more natural, and damaged what was already there.
The campaign’s vision for is new homes that are inspiring and beautiful places to live, and where people and nature thrive together. To achieve this, we need a new approach that puts the natural environment at the heart of development and planning. The focus needs to move to where and how we build houses, not just how many we need to build.
Imagine if the starting point for decisions about housing was to map our woods, meadows, parks and river corridors and identify where new habitats are needed; and then locate and design new housing around this.
Housing developments don’t have to squeeze out wildlife. The benefits are clear: trees in urban areas improve the view, aid privacy, provide shade and help reduce pollution and flash flooding; community green spaces bring people together; and local parks and woods are valuable places for people to walk, play and unwind in.