Eco NW - Applications
Where and how to use the Eco-region NW
Spatial development
The NW Regional Spatial Strategy has great aspirations towards sustainable development, and there are some successes in the region - community woodland, brownfield redevelopment and so on. For the most part the RSS has limited powers and resources, and there is an uneasy balance between economic, social and environmental priorities. The half of the SCP agenda which is concerned with global and overseas impacts of consumption, is hardly on the regional radar.
Underlying this is the assumed 'model' of development - not always a simple either / or case. Early results from the NW Quest tool, for instance, show that many people would like to see a region with higher density urban communities - while personally they would prefer a larger house and garden in the country.
The Eco-region NW toolkit and the REAP system can help to identify trends, alternative options, priorities and impacts, for practical policy issues such as:
- Energy supply options: renewables development, with implications for land use and environmental imapct: fossil fuels in terms of continuation of shift to gas
- Transport supply options: alternative balances of transport modes, given the realities of travel for work, leisure, personal business and freight. Policy options for new infrastructure such as trams or new motorways: constraint measures such as parking policies or road pricing schemes
- Construction options: great potential for increased efficiency in energy, waste etc. It is also more significant in that performance then determines the pattern of demand from households for energy in buildings, and to some extent water and transport
- Waste management options: the REAP system can show the total upstream of inter-industry trading, behind the waste arisings. The options of management / disposal / recycling then determines environmental impacts downstream
