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A recent presentation by AECOM's Peter Robinson put the scale of the challenge faced by urban infrastructure renewal in stark relief. Peter revealed that the expected life span of the current inhabitants of certain areas of Glasgow is just 54 years, the tenements a benighted relic of Glasgow's industrial era. Glasgow has made tremendous progress in ridding itself of the much derided tenements in places like the Gorbals, but some pockets of depredation still remain.

Imagine the potential impact then of a scheme to create healthy, green, spacious areas with a combination of homes, low-key work units, new cultural area and even a river walk. The scheme is part of The Green Network - Integrated Urban Infrastructure Project, which aims to demonstrate best practice in sustainable urban drainage and inclusive urban planning. The project encompasses four sites across three local authority regions in South West Scotland, with water a key factor in each development.

The project was a finalist in Micro Drainage's Zenith Awards, and was presented at the company's 30 year anniversary conference at Newbury Racecourse in November. Befitting the focus of the event, all three presentations showed how water is becoming an increasingly critical factor in urban planning.

In the words of Mark Fletcher, Global Water leader at Arup, who also presented at the conference, "We are now designing with the water cycle in mind." With an estimated 75% of the worlds populations living in cities by the year 2050, it becomes even more critical to design with water, but if we intervene intelligently, understanding the problems likely to be caused by climate change, increasing populations and water shortages in a world which is 75% covered by 'the wrong type of water', then we can reap multiple benefits.

CREATING A GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE
Hence the Green Network - Integrated Urban Infrastructure (GNIUI), a strategic surface water management strategy and associated site development for Jackton, East Kilbride, Glasgow's Pollokshaws and Cowlairs, and Johnstone South West. Each site requires collaborative working between stakeholders, local water authorities, the architect and the strategic drainage engineer to inform an integrated approach towards site development.

The sites vary significantly in size, topography and hydrological constraints, ranging from a rolling greenbelt site within East Kilbride (where they intend to place 3,500 new homes, parkland and a primary school) to an urban quarter in Glasgow City Centre (Pollokshaws, with its live-work units, new cultural area and river walk).

The aim of the design studies is to create new and distinct neighbourhoods with a range of residential and community facilities, each with unique characteristics relevant to individual site constraints and opportunities. The proposed integrated infrastructure, which has to consider topography, local context and the water journey in parallel with one another, will inform future development and create holistic water environments.

The partnership have even put it in their mission statement - where their aim is to provide a shift in perception, and to promote a positive picture of living in and around water and the value of surface water, emphasising the multiple benefits deriving from open spaces (health, ecology, recreation, flood alleviation), and prioritising safe walking and cycling above vehicular movement.

Although the project was also designed to establish and encourage partnership working between all stakeholders, including the public, each site is to be progressed in further detail, to varying degrees, by each local authority. The studies are also to be used to educate, and encourage collaborative working and to promote an integrated approach to development amongst developers, local authorities and professionals.

SURFACE WATER MANAGEMENT
I chose Pollokshaws as the prime example from the project, not just because of the stark contrast between the industrial wasteland and the proposed urban idyll, but because of Peter's enthusiasm at the response to the plan by architects responsible for the future urban development of the site. But more of that later.

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