Green as Snow

Footprint magazine comes out today, with lots of exciting stuff from the Sustainable Housing Awards, which were held last week and organised by Inside Housing. Jon Snow hosted and was very popular with the audience: he was genuinely interested and had a serious message about the need for action, as well as a few jokes (about MPs expenses, for example). 

Mr Snow also has a scheme to get trees planted on every street, by making utilities companies put in tree pits whenever they dig up a road, which seems like an admirable way to quickly improve communities. The problem at the moment is the place to plant, not the trees: councils can take care of that bit.

Our public spaces are so important on many levels: cared for green spaces can prevent anti-social behaviour, cut asthma, give children places to play and explore, mitigate flooding, boost the environment and just look beautiful.

People need trees and green space. Yet so little money goes into the ‘dead’ spaces between tower blocks or by the side of the road - it often requires a little innovation to boost them. We saw a lot of that in the awards entries – and the best were about community engagement and participation as much as money. Even so, some compensation when they dig up your road, in the form of a line of new trees, would be a good start.