Impact case study database

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The impact of this research at Leeds Beckett University has been to increase the capacity of the most disadvantaged neighbourhood groups in England to change statutory planning policy and to make changes to public space that improve wellbeing. Leeds Beckett University encouraged inner-city communities to take part in neighbourhood planning, a government initiative in local democracy launched in 2011. Across England as a whole, disadvantaged communities have encountered many obstacles in taking part in neighbourhood planning and they have missed out on the many economic, social, and environmental benefits. Economic benefits accrue to neighbourhoods who participate in this initiative through receipt of Community Infrastructure Levy income from new development, and social and environmental benefits come from the establishment of a spatial framework against which planning applications will be assessed. By scripting planning policy that will regulate development, disadvantaged communities can influence the quality and design of the built environment, the provision of open green spaces, the availability of cycle and pedestrian routes, recreation and play areas, and the opportunities for community services, jobs, and training.

Improving disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods through the empowerment of community groups

The impact of Bradley’s research resulted in a four-fold increase above the national average in the percentage of disadvantaged neighbourhoods establishing their own neighbourhood planning forums and beginning the process of creating a statutory neighbourhood development plan. These neighbourhood plans set out a community vision for the transformation of urban areas. The impact was first evaluated in Leeds where City Council records showed a radical uplift in urban neighbourhood plans compared to other cities. 37 per cent of the total number of communities taking part in neighbourhood planning in Leeds are from inner city urban areas, compared to only 9 per cent nationally. Furthermore 20 per cent out of the 35 designated neighbourhood forums in Leeds have super-output areas in the lowest, most disadvantaged, quintile of Index of Multiple Deprivation while in England the percentage of designated neighbourhood forums in the lowest quintile IMD is 7.5 per cent. This is a significant increase in the capacity of disadvantaged neighbourhoods to participate in statutory planning and to author their own development plans (5.1).

The neighbourhood plan designed by Holbeck, one of these disadvantaged urban areas, won the National Planning Award and the Royal Town Planning Institute Planning for Excellence Award in 2018 (5.2). The neighbourhood plan provided the blueprint for Holbeck to have good quality and affordable housing, a safe attractive environment, thriving local businesses and better connections for pedestrians, cyclists and sustainable transport​ to the city centre and adjacent neighbourhoods.

This impact was achieved by Bradley’s research through the delivery of nine interactive workshops from November 2015 to November 2017, drawing an attendance of approximately 50 people at each event from 25 neighbourhood planning groups in Leeds and surrounding areas (5.3). The participative workshops enabled groups from across deprived communities in Leeds to meet and to share experiences in a welcoming environment. Case study findings from Bradley’s published research were presented at these events to provide inspiration and good practice guidance to the neighbourhood groups. The research increased the confidence but also the ambition of inner-city groups.

Deryck Piper and Barbara Mitchell from Little Woodhouse Forum, one of the inner-city neighbourhood planning groups, attended all these workshops. They said that when they started their urban neighbourhood plan, they had absolutely no idea how to go about it. In contrast to the rural parish areas, they first had to set up a neighbourhood forum and then define their neighbourhood area. They spent their first year just trying to get the boundaries of the neighbourhood agreed. What they wanted, and what they got from the Leeds Beckett workshops, was to meet people who had already gone through these stages and could give them guidance, but also, as Barbara said:

“I think it was useful to us to meet other people in the same situation and realising that the inner-city forums were an unusual thing so that if we found it difficult, it wasn’t surprising.”

“There was so little face to face support available” Deryck said. “What you really want is someone to tell you what is useful. They [the workshops] came at just the right time.”

Deryck and Barbara liked the fact that Leeds Beckett University was an impartial and authoritative venue but also that the Leeds Beckett research created the space for a variety of views to be heard (5.4).

Leeds City Council's neighbourhood planning co-ordinator confirmed the contribution made by Leeds Beckett's research to encouraging people to participate in an unfamiliar process:

“In the inner city, in the more deprived communities, that understanding [of neighbourhood planning] simply was not there and the people who were part of those groups, generally speaking, didn’t often go to a workshop or a conference, so the fact that it was local, the fact that it was free, the fact that it felt relevant, and it was welcoming, I think that made a difference, just to get things moving, just to get that dialogue going”.

What Leeds Beckett achieved in these events was to bring neighbourhood planning to life and make it relevant to residents who had little knowledge or concern for planning policy or development allocations. In deprived inner-city communities, residents were primarily concerned with issues of a poor environment, but they also had little trust that anything would change because of their involvement. The neighbourhood planning co-ordinator said: “What happened in those workshops and conferences was those groups could actually see what was possible, and see what had been done elsewhere, or indeed some of the mistakes that had been made elsewhere. It oiled the wheels of neighbourhood planning in a big way.”

Bradley's research helped the residents to make links between planning and health and wellbeing as matters of concern in inner-city neighbourhoods which influenced the award-winning Holbeck neighbourhood plan:

“It brought planning from a physical thing, like the look of a building or the allocation of a site, to be something which is about ‘me’ and health and something I can relate to. And in turn it meant that one of the most distinctive features of the Holbeck neighbourhood plan is all of the policies around green space and green infrastructure. And that’s part of the health issue and health runs right through their policies and projects.” (5.5)

The impact achieved by Bradley’s research in Leeds led to invitations from other parts of the region. Local residents in the West Yorkshire towns of Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd asked for assistance in 2018 with drafting their neighbourhood plan. Leeds Beckett University worked with these residents to identify planning solutions to mitigate the effect of catastrophic flooding incidents resulting in a residential development proposal with houses built on stilts, a project that has attracted the interest of one of the UK’s most innovative private sector developers, Citu.

Helping communities change statutory planning policy

Following the successful support for neighbourhood planning groups in Northern England, Bradley was invited to advise community groups in Greater Manchester who wanted to influence statutory planning policy. These groups were concerned about the loss of recreational open space from development allocated in the Greater Manchester Combined Authority’s 2019 draft spatial framework. Bradley worked with 60 urban neighbourhood groups to help them interpret and comment on these plans, providing training on the planning system and research on planning policy. The impact of Leeds Beckett’s work with these local groups was evidenced in the 28,000 comments made on the draft Spatial Framework objecting to the loss of Green Belt land and in the decision of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to reduce by half the amount of Green Belt land allocated for development in their amended plans (5.6). This ensured that locally valued environments were preserved for recreation and that new housing and commercial development was allocated on sites supported by the community.

The reach of Bradley’s research into community engagement in statutory planning then widened and in 2020 work was carried out a nation-wide study of community involvement in planning for housing development. Working with the national planning organisation CPRE and with over 500 participants in amenity groups across the country, Bradley enabled participants to respond to statutory consultation on the Planning White Paper published August 2020 and to feed in their views into a national review of planning policy (5.7). He continues to work with neighbourhood groups in the north of England whose ambition has expanded and who now intend to introduce low carbon planning policies to address the climate emergency.

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Lowering household fuel bills

Following LBU research, party wall heat loss was incorporated into the 2010 Part L of the UK Building Regulations (5.1). This has led to substantial impact in this REF cycle, specifically all new homes built after 2014 have fuel lower bills. Removing the party wall bypass in existing dwellings may reduce whole house heat loss by up to 8% (3.6), when a party cavity wall is not capped. This may be used as a proxy to quantify the impact of the regulatory changes for new build homes. The average annual gas bill in England and Wales in 2019 was £588 (5.2), and of this around 2/3rds may be used for space heating. Thus, removing the party wall heat loss mechanism could equate to a maximum of £31 per home, per year. 53.5% of homes are terraced or semi-detached properties (5.3) and therefore, contain at least one-party wall, and there have been just over 1 million homes built 2013 and 2019 (5.4). Assuming the same proportion (53.5%) of these have a cavity party wall, this equates to cumulative maximum savings of £66 million during this period alone, assuming these party walls would have otherwise been poorly performing. Even if only a fraction these party walls would have been poorly performing this still equates to millions of pounds of fuel bill savings.

In addition, data suggests that 1,724 existing homes have had party cavity wall insulation (PCWI) retrofits funded via the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) during this period (5.5), resulting in a further maximum saving of £53,000 per annum collectively for these homes. It is important to recognise that these savings will be achieved every year as long as the insulation remains installed in the homes, which could be many decades. These savings are based on heat loss reduction measured from the retrofit of a single party wall. However, even if the national average savings indicated here were only half this per house (i.e. some party walls were better performing), this still represents a huge financial saving of millions of pounds to UK households every year.

New markets for domestic construction businesses

Incorporation of the party wall bypass for new build homes has increased the sales of insulation substantially. Cavity wall insulation can cost £10 per m² (5.6) and party walls may be 25m² representing a new build market of up to £250 million for the million new homes built during the 2014 to 2020 REF period. This will grow year on year as new homes are added to the housing stock. The party wall bypass is also now being addressed through retrofitting existing homes. There are estimated to be 7.3 million existing homes in the UK with cavity party walls with potential to be insulated, though the extent of the party wall bypass in these homes is not known (5.7). Assuming only half of these homes could have a cavity party wall retrofit and considering that the average cost of a retrofit is £350 per home (5.6), LBU findings have unlocked a market worth up to £1.2 billion. Following LBU research, party cavity wall retrofits were adopted into the Energy Company Obligations (ECO) policy in 2013, a government energy efficiency scheme to help reduce carbon emissions, with the impact that these now make up 0.7% of all ECO funded retrofits taking place (5.5).

Reducing Fuel Consumption for low-income households

In this REF period, the Government’s fuel poverty policy (ECO), has funded 1,724 party cavity wall insulation retrofits. People in fuel poverty are more at risk of health problems resulting from cold homes, party wall retrofits can improve thermal comfort and make homes easier to heat. The discovery of the bypass by LBU has therefore contributed to health and wellbeing of thousands of occupants in these retrofitted homes.

Preventing Carbon Emissions

The impact of party cavity wall insulation in new build and existing homes also means fewer carbon emissions. The maximum estimated national fuel bill savings, previously mentioned of £66 million, means that, assuming gas sells at 4p per kWh, up to 2.6 GWh of gas use may have been avoided in this REF period. At the Government’s conversion rate of 1.83 kgCO₂eq per kWh of gas, we can estimate up to 120,000 tonnes of CO₂eq for the qualifying period was avoided by insulating party cavity walls, assuming they would have otherwise been poorly performing. The significance of this saving is further enhanced in that these savings will continue to be achieved each year, and every new home built in the UK in the future will also benefit.

Leading policy reform around domestic construction performance gap

Bell was chair and lead author for several Zero Carbon Hub repots, a public private partnership, set up to review industry practice, academic research, and state of the art of UK construction, including the highly acclaimed End of Term Route Map for achieving zero carbon homes in this REF period (5.8).

This led to LBU research being recognized in national press for establishing and quantifying the building fabric thermal “performance gap” and contributing to a U-turn in the acceptance of UK housebuilders to this phenomenon (5.9).

The LBU co-heating protocol has been promoted by the IEA and is in the process of being developed into an international standard by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN). The protocol has also been adopted by the UK Government in multiple research projects worth over £10 million during this REF period and is recognised as the ‘ best currently available and proven measurement option for calculating the heat transfer coefficient of homes” (5.10).

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Potable water is vital for improving the health, welfare, and productivity of populations. Clean water is also essential for sustainable development. The longer-term benefits of consuming potable water will directly contribute to the health of the population, quality of life, and drive economic growth.

Improving water quality in Malawi

After undertaking the shallow well field-monitoring programme in southern Malawi pre-2014, LBU’s team worked with water officers, community leaders and village chiefs associated with heavily contaminated wells to implement short-term remediation strategies to minimise potential outbreaks of water-related diseases. For example, this involved segregation of water supplies into washing and drinking; the use of basic indicators to assess quality; and the implementation of primary treatment before drinking. Also, to repairing and maintaining the extraction points and surrounding areas to eliminate further deterioration of water quality. Approximately 88% of Water Officials contacted reported that “there has been less reported cases of waterborne diseases, such as cholera, and child mortality rates have gradually dropped” thereby resulting in a corresponding “economic growth” [A].

This work was awarded first prize at the ‘Research Councils/UK Water’ Research Impact Awards in 2015 for ‘reducing waterborne diseases from shallow wells in the developing world’ [B]. Inter alia, the ‘Water Resources Investment Strategy’, World Bank funded, captured the data to develop policy. Hence, influencing future policy [C].

The setup and teaching of the Malawi Polytechnic’s postgraduate provision

Dr Pritchard also led an international team of four academics and two industrialists to develop and promote Malawi Polytechnic’s first postgraduate provision directed towards water management. As part of the setup of this programme, a dedicated postgraduate computer room was initiated. This room was the first of a kind at the Malawi Polytechnic, and helped them address the 4E framework for e-learning. This allowed novel teaching approaches to be introduced. For example, the MSc modules were structured to the format of project/problem-based learning, where students assessed water quality case study data and used this information to solve real-life problems related to Malawi. Overall, a first-class environment was created to train future water professionals within sub-Saharan Africa. Graduates from this course are now working in the water sector – promoting good practise as well as ensuring current guidelines are enforced; all of which results in less outbreaks of waterborne diseases, hence a reduction in water related deaths. For example, a graduate from the programme, who currently manages 26 people, has worked on the “Accreditation of some methods at Central Water laboratory Lilongwe Water and Sanitation Project Water Resources Monitoring Project”. Other notable projects from different graduates include the “ Rehabilitation of Chikwina Mpamba Gravity Water Supply System”, which consisted of “ intake works, 13 kms transmission mains and 30 kms distributions mains with over 100 tap points” as well as work on the “review of national water policy”. The resulting impacts from these projects, which graduates have worked on, have been reported to have “helped in improving people's livelihoods and this has had an effect on the economy” [D] .

Improving operational reliability of rural water pumps

A recent expansion of the team’s research portfolio relates to Dr Swan’s work to improve the operational reliability of rural water infrastructure [5 & 6]. Various monitoring systems have been developed for water infrastructure across the Global South. However, many such technologies use complex data collection systems, which are energy-hungry and expensive. The MANTIS system is a power efficient and low-cost system which was developed at LBU. It detects whether the water pump is in regular use and reports patterns of usage via a web-interface. The prototype technology was ‘market-readied’ via collaborations between the University and two SMEs: Environmental Monitoring Solutions Ltd (EMS) and VisualWind Ltd (VW). This venture attracted three separate Innovate UK funding awards (IUK Project Refs: 751888; 132583 and 67621), which facilitated demonstration projects in Gambia and Sierra Leone (2016-17) to monitor water infrastructure serving approximately 3,000 people [E]. In Gambia, the MANTIS system successfully detected water pump failures and informed the country’s Rural Water Resources Department, who were able to more quickly implement repairs [E]. Spin-off meetings were held with a range of key stakeholders, including members of the Gambian government (e.g., Gambia’s Minister of Water Resources) and a number of international NGOs/charities [F]. Our current Innovate UK project is exploring market opportunities for the MANTIS system in India.

In March 2020, the MANTIS system was highlighted by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) as a best practice exemplar [G] for addressing the complex and pressing challenges of SDG 6. In November 2020, the ICE published a book to commemorate the 75th year of the United Nations and the corresponding progress towards engineering sustainability. This publication features an article on LBU’s MANTIS project, alongside contributions from UN agencies and other prominent organisations such as WaterAid and Oxford University [H].