What does good green infrastructure policy look like? developing a policy assessment tool to assess plans, policies and programmes

This Expert Paper answers the question ‘what does good GI policy look like’ by reporting on the design and testing of a hybridised GI policy tool which assesses the multifunctionality and strength of GI policy wording using the recently revised English National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) and Planning Policy Wales (PPW10) as illustrative case studies. While these are national level policy frameworks, the tool has multi-scalar application at regional and municipality/local authority and neighbourhood levels for both statutory and non-statutory plans. The tool is the result of a fusion of key GI research and practice endeavours; a pilot involving 19 local authorities within the Central
Scotland Green Network (CSGN) area; the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Building with Nature standards research project; the Glasgow Clyde Valley (GCV) Green Network Partnership’s Integrating Green Infrastructure (IGI) Approach; and a NERCfunded knowledge exchange project on mainstreaming GI.

This Expert Paper proceeds with a review of GI barriers and opportunities before then detailing the development of the self-assessment tool and explaining the methodology involved in carrying out a plan assessment. Thereafter, it reports the findings of the NPPF and PPW10 assessments and considers the specific and general implications that they have for the design and delivery of good GI policy in practice across England and Europe.