Leeds City Region Green Infrastructure Strategy

The Leeds City Region partnership comprises the districts of Barnsley, Bradford, Calderdale, Craven, Harrogate, Kirklees, Leeds, Selby, Wakefield, York and North Yorkshire County Council. It has a £51bn economy, over 100,000 businesses and over 3 million inhabitants being the largest economic and population centre in the country outside London. Against this backdrop, local authority and business leaders came together and submitted a proposal to Government to be granted Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) status in September 2010. LEPs are locally-owned partnerships between local authorities and businesses which will play a central role in determining local economic priorities, driving growth and job creation within their boundaries. The Leeds City Region proposal was approved by Government in October 2010.

A key feature of the submission was the GI strategy, which contains a number of investment programmes highlighting the ways in which GI delivers a wealth of economic, and other, benefits. The strategy maps existing aspects of the natural environment and suggests how this can be enhanced and new features added in order to increase the number of benefits. A Delivery Plan for the Strategy's flagship project, Fresh Aire, will be developed in 2011 in order to ensure the thinking in the strategy is translated into reality on the ground.

The strategy contains an investment programme which seeks to ensure that provision is made in new developments which retain or create carbon sinks so as not to worsen impacts on climate change. In recognition of increased flooding and higher temperatures, particularly in towns and cities, the strategy proposes a number of GI interventions such as increased tree planting and greening of urban areas.

Another aspect of the strategy focuses on delivering green infrastructure enhancements on derelict sites to improve local environmental quality, thereby increasing the area's attractiveness to developers and investors. In order to continue to deliver strong, yet sustainable, economic growth it is crucial that the city region continues to improve and make best of use of its natural environment. The Leeds Region GI strategy will be central to achieving this.