Trees work harder than you think.
They cool our streets, clean our air and provide us with shade. We’re planting 5,000 more where heat risk is highest - growing London’s tree canopy for future generations.
https://t.co/Jc3Qwadl6g
This is an important building by @Groupwork_arch
1,000 tonnes of solid volcanic rock provide the structure for this 10-storey apartment building, massively reducing steel and concrete
This could be used up to 30 storeys, to create new housing and reduce emissions!
It’s mad how blind we are on planning & licensing. You can access individual cases, but the data is near inaccessible in aggregate, with large gaps. The public can’t track what is going on, and policy makers must be pretty blind to what is happening under the hood.
As the UN warns of a record El Niño approaching, I wanted to share this writeup of a Reddit AMA with Ajit Niranjan and Jonathan Watts on extreme weather supercharged by the climate crisis this summer
https://t.co/oA3lPJcnDB
Remember the outrage when cars were removed from the top of Trafalgar Square? Or the outrage with the removal of cars in Aldwych? Or Alfred Place
Now, no one cares, because once cars are removed, the area instantly improves. I suspect the same will happen with Oxford Street.
Not insane at all. Nuclear Power Plants create lots of well paid jobs in the local data and secure huge amounts of public subsidy. Data centres don't. Completely rational opinions by the public. Data centre advocates typically have awful arguments. Like this.
Ulez has delivered remarkable public health gains in a short period: air pollution deaths have fallen by 40% since 2019 and children's lung health is improving.
Sadiq Khan deserves credit for defying Labour pressure to U-turn after the Uxbridge defeat. https://t.co/WoClf1JUr0
NEW: @SadiqKhan has announced up to 5,000 additional street trees in areas most at risk from extreme heat.
As London gets hotter, access to shade matters - but not every community has equal access to green space.
That’s why we’re targeting trees where they’re needed most ☀️🌳
Visited Wellington yesterday for the first time @SomersetCouncil. Typical British High Street in decline. And yet, the reasons are so obvious.
Why would I want to spend time here?
Not a single tree, bin bags on the floor, street clutter everywhere, crappy paving, no design standards for signage, total vehicle dominance.
Guys, it’s really not that hard.
Visited Wellington yesterday for the first time @SomersetCouncil. Typical British High Street in decline. And yet, the reasons are so obvious.
Why would I want to spend time here?
Not a single tree, bin bags on the floor, street clutter everywhere, crappy paving, no design standards for signage, total vehicle dominance.
Guys, it’s really not that hard.
Spot the difference.
We didn't 5x the Cycleways network in London overnight. It took vision, hard work, and the conviction to invest in green infrastructure - often in the face of vocal opposition.
In 2016, we had 90km of Cycleways. Now we're at 450km. That's real progress.
And we're not stopping there…
I love seeing more trees on London’s streets. I welcome the Mayors plan to plant many more. But no one has a plan to water them. And unless councils, residents & businesses take it on, they just die. It makes me sad to see so many dead young trees. What a waste!
⛔️ Today the National Glass Centre in Sunderland closes for the last time, ahead of a proposed demolition at the hands of Sunderland University, supposed custodians of the centre. The public outcry and political pressure to prevent a forced closure has been steadily growing over the past three years, reaching fever pitch in the past few weeks. 1,000 years of glassmaking history on this site is at risk of being extinguished.
The campaign continues, with C20 Society’s listing application currently being assessed by @HistoricEngland.
Ahead of the sold out debate earlier this week @owen_hopkins, Director of the @FarrellCentre, and Carolyn Basing, Chair of @SaveTheNGC, shared some thoughts on why this is a facility and a building too good to lose.
✍🏼 Join 41,000+ people by signing and sharing the @Change petition: https://t.co/ys1Sb1EccR
Aerial footage: NorthernPerspectivesUK
Audio: https://t.co/bfrn8lZP2p
I feel sad seeing newly planted trees in London dying or dead. It doesn’t take much to come out with a watering can or bucket once or twice a week to keep them alive. Please share. Encourage people to look after what little nature we have.
NEWS: Doncaster Dome leisure centre in South Yorkshire has reopened to the public following a 2 year, £15 million project to refurbish the pools, flumes, changing area, mechanical heating and water filter system.
Designed by architects Faulkner-Brown Hendy Watkinson in 1987-89, the centre was designated Grade II in 2023 after a listing application as part of C20 Society’s Leisure Centres campaign.
Doncaster Dome represents the culmination of @FaulknerBrowns work on several leisure projects from the 1960s to early 90s. Constructed on a discarded 320-acre former coal-field site, the building was opened in 1989 by Princess Diana and its success was such that it recorded a million visitors in 1990.
The building features many Post-Modern motifs throughout; mock pilasters adorn the health suite like a Roman baths, and the polished polychromatic banded walls are reminiscent of Renaissance buildings like Siena Cathedral.
The 650 tonnes High-Tech structural steel frame, in tapered perforated I-section columns, meets the masonry columns in a satisfying junction of old and new. Perhaps the most striking space is the atrium: a glazed rotunda, 30m in diameter and 19m high, with striped columns around the perimeter holding up the steel oculus, described as a ‘mock Pantheon dedicated to the gods of leisure’.
On Hampstead Heath today at 4 PM, practically no one was on the scorched yellow grass in direct sunlight, but there were dozens of people under these majestic trees.
A reminder that it’s between 7 and 15 degrees cooler under trees. It’s obvious we need more everywhere …