Green infrastructure

Green infrastructure plans

Green infrastructure plans identify priority areas for protecting improving and creating green infrastructure. We have developed GI plans at a variety of scales:

  • a strategic level plan covering the whole county of Bedfordshire
  • district-level plans, for mid-Bedfordshire and for Luton and southern Bedfordshire
  • community-level plans, developed by many individual towns and parishes across Central Bedfordshire

Plans are available from Bedfordshire Local Nature Partnership.

Designing green infrastructure into new development

Designing Green Infrastructure into new developments creates attractive, sustainable places.

Milton Keynes / South Midlands

Design guidance (available from Bedfordshire Local Nature Partnership) has been developed by partners across Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Northamptonshire and Milton Keynes.

This guidance is highly regarded and has received a national Landscape Institute award and a regional Royal Town Planning Institute Award.

The guidance is easy to use. It sets out design principles that allow for:

  • green spaces to transform urban life by cooling cities
  • filtering out pollutants
  • improving people’s health
  • supporting wildlife
  • creating attractive places to live and work in

These design principles serve as a checklist for developers and planners, both in designing high quality environments for people and wildlife and ensuring high standards are achieved in the evaluation of planning applications.

Central Bedfordshire

These principles have been included in our design guide, which includes a chapter on green infrastructure, climate change adaptation and sustainable buildings.