Speech welcoming the Northern Ireland Landscape Charter at the "Changing Landscapes" Conference at Craigavon
+ a film at the end....
http://www.craigavon.gov.uk/the-council/news/3839-minister-opens-major-landscape-conference.htmlMinister, Mark H Durkan, said:
It gives me great pleasure to be here in Craigavon Civic Centre at the invitation of Craigavon Borough Council to open this conference on ‘Changing Landscapes’. I welcome you all to what I know will be a very informative and challenging exchange of ideas about our landscape.
The fact that the venue has been moved to the main conference hall to accommodate a quite unexpected increase in delegate numbers shows the interest that this conference has aroused.
I would like to thank Craigavon Borough Council, the Landscape Institute for Northern Ireland and my own officials in the Northern Ireland Environment Agency for organising this event and bringing you together. I know you have come from across local and central Government as officials, elected Councillors and Council CEOs as well as community leaders, representatives of environmental voluntary groups, landscape design and environmental professions in Northern Ireland to consider the future of this national resource, our landscape.
I welcome speakers who have come to share their experience of best practice in Scotland and England and also to celebrate 50 years since the creation by Royal Charter of Craigavon New Town and nearly 50 years since the formation of the Landscape Institute in Ireland.
The New Town Movement was founded on the ideal of a better life lived closer to nature through good design. The landscape architectural concerns of effective site planning and sustainable design have meant that the landscape infrastructure of Craigavon has out-lived the original new building stock.
The New Town concept has always been about living sustainably. It was a reaction against the excesses of the industrial revolution of the previous century which had sacrificed peoples’ quality of life for their productivity. One can imagine life in the closely packed tenement houses that surround the industrial mills of Victorian Belfast or similar cities, with poor air quality, limited sanitation and no access to open green spaces.
One can also imagine the same ideal bringing young families from the ‘troubles’ and tenement houses of Belfast in the early 1970s to start a new life in the planned garden city of Craigavon New Town. The same ideal also brought landscape and other design professionals to Craigavon to assist in its creation. These came from across the world with their own skills and cultural influences – India, USA, Scandinavia, Germany as well as Great Britain. Today Craigavon is a testament to their legacy and vision. It is easy to look outside this building at the lakes and be deceived into thinking this is the work of nature and not man. I urge you to compare the ‘before’ (Ordinance Survey map) and ‘after’ (current aerial photograph) of the lakes area on the conference publicity. We now need to re-apply these same ideals and proven skills to our landscapes in Northern Ireland as we start a period of significant change in local governance here. This will be the theme of today.
Current environmental thinking includes concepts of Natural Capital, Eco-system Services and Green Infrastructure. Craigavon has these in abundance. Where else in Northern Ireland can you find dedicated pedestrian and cycle routes, separated from traffic, well lit and maturely planted that actually get you quicker to where you want to go than getting in a car and driving there. Look outside this building – the lakes are a sustainable urban drainage system or eco-system service in operation. They not only look natural and are a pleasure to visit for wildlife and humans, they are also providing a service which today can be quantified in monetary terms. The ‘Balancing Lakes’ as they are correctly called, control surface run off into Lough Neagh from all hard surfaces in the urban areas of Craigavon. Two lakes working together via sluice gates below an international railway line on a future motorway median; futuristic landscape design in the 1970s which today provides an eco-system service for local rate payers at no cost.
Buildings are said to be the signature of architects whereas often the highest compliment you can make about the work of a landscape architect is to say that you thought it was always there – that nature made it. Generally that is when the design is right because it works naturally.
I would therefore like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the fact that 50 years ago the landscape design professionals drawn together in the creation of Craigavon New Town formed the cradle for that profession on the island of Ireland. In 1966 they established a Landscape Institute of Ireland (then called the Society of Landscape Architects in Ireland). Today the Republic of Ireland has its own Landscape Institute, and I extend a warm welcome to those delegates attending today. Both Institutes are now represented in the European Federation of Landscape Architects which contributed to drafting the European Landscape Convention that came into force in the UK on 1 March 2007. To ensure that Northern Ireland takes its commitment seriously to the Convention, the officials in my Landscape Architects Branch moved into the Northern Ireland Environment Agency earlier last year tasked with advancing Northern Ireland’s compliance with the European Landscape Convention. Progress here will be reported to the congress of the Council of Europe, along with England, Scotland and Wales, in Strasbourg in March 2015.
As we all know, the Review of Public Administration will see planning powers devolved to new councils here in April 2015. The timing of this conference is important as we need to build capacity now in new councils to help them make the right decisions in the future to achieve growth whilst protecting and enhancing the landscapes within their stewardship. Today the speed and scale of change can be more dramatic than ever before, particularly from energy generation, waste disposal, agri-food, urban expansion and infrastructure projects.
We need therefore in the run-up to April 2015 to establish a sound evidence base for decision making about our landscape and its value. Landscape Character Assessment is an invaluable tool in helping guide development without damaging the landscape in which it is located. It can also stimulate economic development by identifying opportunities to be grasped. In 2000 my Department was at the forefront of landscape assessment with the first regional Landscape Character Assessment in the UK. Practice has now moved on but I intend Northern Ireland to re-occupy that first position again. I am pleased to announce that the Northern Ireland Environment Agency has produced a Seascape Assessment of our entire coastline with 21 shoreline areas and 3 off-shore areas of Seascape to assist sound decision making about our coasts and marine environment. Northern Ireland is fortunate to have a coastline that already merits Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty status for approximately 70% of its length. The Seascape Assessment will assist in ensuring that the unique character of each part of our coastline is recognised and celebrated.
Similarly we are fortunate that within a relatively small geographic area in Northern Ireland we have such quality and variety of landscape types. Since 2000 our landscape has experienced the effects of both economic boom and economic decline which has only made more urgent the need for us to clearly value what remains. Therefore I intend to initiate through the Landscape Architects team in the Northern Ireland Environment Agency a complete renewal of our terrestrial Landscape Character Assessment. The first regional phase will be completed by April 2015 following latest international best practice which this conference will help to determine. The second local phase will be completed by the same team in partnership with officials from new council groupings after the transfer of planning functions.
In the meantime we have not stood still. My Department recently completed consultation on ‘Living Places’ which is being taken to each new council grouping to promote good practice in our urban areas. The European Landscape Convention stresses that “All Landscapes Matter”. For this reason today I am also particularly pleased to officially launch Northern Ireland’s Landscape Charter.
A hard copy is included in each delegate’s pack and since the 1st January 2014 it has been accessible on the website of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. Many have already signed up and drawn attention to the unique value of particular places and landscapes in Northern Ireland. Clearly a ‘conversation’ has already started between individuals, organisations and my Department from which we can all learn over the coming months. The Landscape Charter is not new policy. It is simply a non-statutory call to action for every section of society to wake up to their surroundings. I encourage and urge you all to endorse the clear vision, principles and objectives of Northern Ireland’s Landscape Charter by signing up to it today. Please continue this ‘conversation’ with my Department over the next 6 months.
This can be done simply by sending an e-mail to the address on its last page. Remember to include any comments about our landscapes, particularly of good examples and practice locally that you would like to be celebrated or the concerns and issues you wish to be highlighted in future versions of the Charter.
Northern Ireland is the second devolved nation in the UK after Scotland to have a Landscape Charter. From the response to date I know this ‘conversation’ can influence future policy about our landscape. Signing up to Northern Ireland’s Landscape Charter is a first step in taking seriously our commitment to the European Landscape Convention.
I commend the interest and action of non government environmental groups such as the Northern Ireland Environment Link that has assisted us in getting to this point. I also acknowledge similar advice from the Ministerial Advisory Group to the DCAL Minister in their recent draft position paper ‘Our Landscape Relationship’ to which I have responded. I also commend the Landscape Institute for Northern Ireland, whose Policy Officer wrote to me last September also urging me to consider a Landscape Charter for Northern Ireland.
Northern Ireland’s Landscape Charter is only a starting point. The interest and debate that it and today’s conference will generate may lead the way to a National Landscape Strategy for Northern Ireland to define policy to assist councils at a local level post April 2015. That is my hope. I note that the Republic of Ireland’s Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht have reached public consultation stage with their ‘National Landscape Strategy’. It would make sound economic and environmental sense if we were to develop a Northern Ireland Landscape Strategy to co-ordinate with colleagues there to ensure both are mutually supportive. On that note I welcome the speaker from Donegal County Council who will be talking about their current experience in providing a Landscape and Seascape Character Assessment for their council area which shares a long common border with Northern Ireland. Landscape and seascape are not constrained by administrative or national boundaries: something to be remembered as our new council groupings define the boundaries for their new areas.
In conclusion I would like to thank all those involved in preparing this conference and in particular the following from Craigavon Borough Council: Mayor Mark Baxter, Chair of Development Councillor Carla Lockhart and Chief Executive Officer Dr Theresa Donaldson for agreeing to host this event in such an inspiring setting.
I wish you all a successful day which I know will set us on the right course for the future of Northern Ireland’s landscape.
