Conference
Sustainable Development X Urban Conservation
23 & 24 October 2024, Bath, UK
A sector-focused conference to explore innovative and practical approaches which demonstrate how urban conservation and protected landscapes may pioneer positive development, which is sustainable within the Doughnut Economics model.
The conference is a collaboration between Bath & North East Somerset Council, Bath Preservation Trust, University of Bath and World Heritage UK.
Bringing together sector leaders to explore how sustainable development can be made to work in urban development and why it is so important.
Bath is the perfect case-study of a city facing pressures on many levels. It is constrained by geography, increasingly affected by climate change, it needs more housing, better services and to balance the competing demands for growth and innovation while addressing disparate and variable social opportunity.
It is like every other city in the UK except the whole city is also a World Heritage site, providing one of the most complex planning environments in the world.
The need for conservation and responsibility for World Heritage is too often cited as a barrier to development. The reality is that homes are being built but the cost is unaffordable by most, those houses being built do not respond to local demand and design quality does not match the historic backdrop. The high costs are contributing to social disparity, with social mobility and opportunity compounded and confounded for many residents.
Sustainable development and the need for growth need practical reconciliation.
This conference will explore how sustainable and appropriate development can take place in cities with equally complex planning rules and how learning from others can influence change in Bath and across the UK.
The local context
Bath & North East Somerset Council declared a climate and nature emergency in 2019 and have committed to focus all policies on addressing the emergency. The work is important and urgent, and many public, private and third sector leaders in the region have committed their support.
In 2023, the council aimed to adopt the principles of Doughnut Economics, delivering services recognising the ‘ecological ceiling’ (the finite resources of the planet) and the need to sustain ‘social foundations’.
Bath & North East Somerset Council observe and deliver against the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
The University of Bath recognise the climate and nature emergency and observe and deliver against the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Bath Preservation Trust recognise the climate and nature emergency and observe and deliver against the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
