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SUBR:IM : Sustainable Urban Brownfield Regeneration: Integrated Management

In March 2008 the Government announced formal adoption of the first ever National Brownfield Strategy for England, designed to reuse over 52,000ha of previously developed, vacant or derelict land in support of Government ambitions to build 3M new homes by 2020. In the government’s plans, at least 60% of the homes will be on brownfield sites, protecting greenfield land at the same time as tackling derelict, blighted areas within existing communities.

The announcement of these plans coincided with the completion of work by SUBR:IM (Sustainable Urban Brownfield Regeneration: Integrated Management). Part of the Sustainable Urban Environments research programme, the 4 year research brought together 8 major research institutions to help tackle brownfield research problems including key stakeholders from industry, national and local government.
SUBR:IM focused on a portfolio of brownfield sites in two regions, Greater Manchester and the Thames Gateway. Both regions included some of the most deprived communities in the UK and had substantial brownfield problems. The portfolio investigated problems actually facing developers, local authorities and other stakeholders, combining the expertise of engineering and science working in concert with policy, planning, and social engineering to achieve cost-effective, sustainable solutions.

As well as having a portfolio and project management work-package the core work packages will research a range of aspects of brownfield management, from understanding how to measure sustainability, through analysis of decision-making, to developing robust technical solutions to land remediation. Allied to this core is a range of ‘plus’ projects which extend the research into waste issues, surface water, and alternative remediation techniques.
SUBR:IM research gives stakeholders and policy makers an improved understanding of the relationship amongst key remediation stakeholders; the public are better informed about what is involved in the remediation work; landowners, their advisors and contractors obtain better ways of assessing and resolving contaminated land issues; agencies and local authorities are offered key pointers on how to bring community involvement and understanding to the regeneration process; and scientists and social scientists better understand how dialogue can help ensure that very practical, ‘real world’, problems are tackled in a sustainable way.

PUBLICATIONS

SU:BRIM have compiled many of the key findings and outputs of their research project in the form of a book, Sustainable Brownfield Regeneration: Liveable Places from Problem Spaces, which was published by Blackwell in 2007. The book has two principal aims. The first is to examine the ways in which science and social
science research disciplines can be brought together to help solve important brownfield
regeneration issues, with a focus on the UK. The second is to assess the efficiency and
effectiveness of different types of regeneration policy and practice, and to show how 'liveable spaces' can be produced from 'problem places'.

The SUBR:IM consortium teamed up with CL:AIRE (Contaminated Land: Application in Real Environments – an independent, not for profit organisation) to disseminate their research findings. CLAIRE published nine user guides centred around SUBR:IM research aiming at various key issues including sustainability measurements, design for deconstruction, communicating risk and community engagement.
website http://www.claire.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=51&Itemid=50
contact enquiries@claire.co.uk

http://www.claire.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=51&Itemid=50