EBA behind the scenes:
The Green and Blue Infrastructure Project The Joint Strategic Plan – South Essex
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Did you know that a Joint Strategic Plan is being developed which will affect South Essex over the next 30 years? This applies to Basildon, Brentwood, Castle Point, Rochford, Southend on Sea and Thurrock and will affect green (land based) and blue (water based) infrastructure. GBI for short. Recently the EBA was invited to participate in a stakeholders’ workshop to give feedback on the plan, exploring GBI benefits. The full name is ‘South Essex Green and Blue Infrastructure Study, Resilient by Nature’. The leader is Alexandra Steed URBAN Ltd. The plan is summarised in a GBI Benefits colour wheel. There are 3 focus areas: Social, Economic and Environmental which are broken down into 9 interrelated projects. (See the colour wheel opposite) The workshop was looking for ideas and propositions for green and blue infrastructure initiatives and projects across
By Jan Arthur, Vice-Chair
South Essex. Ideas were asked for to develop as many of the green and blue infrastructure opportunities as possible and The EBA submitted an initiative at the workshop. Individuals can add to the feedback by submitting your own ideas. If you live in the areas mentioned above, we would particularly welcome your contribution. The EBA‘s main focus is to the development and enhancement of bridleways and is mostly based in the Social area: The 3 projects in this area, specifically are: 1 Promote Liveable and Healthy places: provide a diversity of leisure and recreational activities. 2 Celebrate a Sense of Place: enhance views 3 Improve Connectivity: continuous path systems and recreational loops and register and improve PRoWs. Other projects within the framework where the EBA could have an influence are:
Under the Environmental area: ecotourism. And under the Economic: local employment opportunities and agritourism. You could submit ideas based on any of them. These are some ideas that could start you thinking.
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Under the Social area: 1 provide a diversity of leisure and recreational activities. The wider the variety of activities that can be supported in the community the happier and healthier individuals will be. The Joint Strategic Plan (JSP) should make sure that the largest number of people can enjoy the natural environment by providing as many multi-user routes as possible. By this means, not only horse riders but also walkers, cyclists and the less able are provided with traffic-free routes to experience the green environment.
Are there areas near you that could be developed as multi user routes? 2 enhance views. Though not a major area of concern for the EBA, the provision of bridleways could enhance access to special viewpoints across the area. For example, there is a bridleway in Stapleford Tawney that has an
outstanding view into the centre of London from the hill summit. Other views could be selected and enhanced as bridleways are improved. Do you know of any good views near you that can be seen from PRoWs and need to be worked on? 3 continuous path systems and recreational loops and
register and improve PRoWs. Seeking to enhance the connectivity of the PRoW system and making it more accessible to all, including horse riders, would improve individuals’ lifestyles. This is something the EBA has been working on for some time, liaising in various ways with Continued over page