Following Earth Day, back in April this year, I headed to day one of the Trees, People and the Built Environment conference at Edgbaston Stadium. This conference brought together professionals from many disciplines within the built environment including arboriculturalists, landscape architects, planners, urban designers, highway and drainage engineers and many more.

A few weeks ago Ana and Maria from Define took part in a bespoke two day training course learning about Space Syntax in London. Successful and unsuccessful spaces were visited to test the principles how people move, interact and perceive changes in visual fields within the city were observed.

I recently attended a CPD organised by the Landscape Institute on outdoor activity areas, it reminded me of my bus journey to and from the office. At the same point each day, I look out of the window and see deserted fitness machines on the edge of a new housing development. I often wondered why nobody used them, was it because I never pass through in the daytime? Was it because of their location next to a busy road into Birmingham? Or was it simply that people don’t like using them?

Read any article or publication of note in the industry at the moment and you will more than likely find an impressive diagram or illustration at the top of the page, showing how you’ll jump out of your electric car ready to be fully charged on your return and straight onto an e-scooter or e-bike for hire which you can take you to where you need to go. If you’re really lucky you’ll be able to hop on some autonomous e-helicopter thing that will deliver Amazon packages on its way.

I’ve always loved riding bikes, and as I’ve got older have realised you will always have one to suit your current circumstance. My mountain biking days are pretty much behind me now (I don't bounce off the floor like I used to when I was 18), and after a brief flirtation with long course racing in Triathlon, I currently find myself happily ensconced in the gravel bike community. That ‘go anywhere’ ability not only fulfils rides in the woods, but, as of the last couple of years, a commute into work. 

My colleagues at Define really love what they do.  They are passionate about the landscape and people and the changes they can make.  Before beginning this journey, I felt stuck, not knowing where I wanted to go, but I researched and researched until I found a career path, a lifestyle that suited me and my interests, that brings together my passions. 

I had the pleasure recently of being asked to join the leader of Warwick District Council, Cllr Andrew Day, on a webinar led by MPC to discuss progress of the joint Local Plan with Stratford on Avon and how the Council’s declaration of a climate emergency and the pandemic has impacted on that process, and on the future delivery of housing…a lot to cover in under an hour.

Meghan and I were sitting in a Building with Nature training course, when this opening question was posed. Casting my mind back across more years than I like to remember, the first thing that came to mind was a summer holiday club that I used to go to as a kid, set in a Nature Reserve in Birmingham.…

I’ve been working on Ebbsfleet for five years now. It started with Define helping out with some masterplanning work and it’s evolved into us being responsible for the design and detailing of all the public realm in the entire Eastern Quarry- which is roughly 14Ha of parkland and open space- the life force for the 6000 new homes to be located here as part of the NHS Health New Towns initiative. The site sits in the former Ebbsfleet Chalk Quarry, a landscape characterised by chalk cliffs and lakes, with the ever imposing silhouette of Dartford Bridge looming over everything.