Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council

Stockton-on-Tees Green Infrastructure Strategy

Green Infrastructure includes trees, woodlands, parks, green spaces, rivers, streams, allotments, footpaths, wildlife areas and much more.

Green Infrastructure is important to us all.  For example, it provides places for play and exercise; spaces to grow food; attractive environments to live and work; 'green routes' for walking and cycling; and areas for wildlife.  Green Infrastructure helps to provide us with clean air and water, and in the future it will play an essential role in helping us adapt to climate change, for example, by cooling our towns and reducing the risk of flooding.

To gain the maximum benefits from our green infrastructure it needs to be planned and managed as a network of connected spaces that deliver all the benefits outlined above.  To help us achieve that, several organisations have worked together to prepare the Stockton-on-Tees Green Infrastructure Strategy.  You can download the strategy by clicking on the link below.  There is also a link to the Tees Valley Green Infrastructure Strategy 2008.

More information on the Borough's green infrastructure network, open spaces and designated areas such as Local Wildlife Sites is available on our on-line map:  Green Infrastructure Mapping

A partnership 'Action Plan' for the strategy will be available later in 2012.  In the meantime Stockton Borough Council has prepared a Draft Green Infrastructure Delivery Plan setting out several projects which could be implemented in future years.

For more general information on green infrastructure follow these links:

• Natural England - what is green infrastructure?;

http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/planningtransportlocalgov/greeninfrastructure/default.aspx

• A number of excellent publications on green infrastructure are also available via the Design Council website;

http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/our-work/CABE/CABE-publications/