Key Spatial Principles

 Please note Regional Strategies / Regional Spatial Strategies were revoked with immediate effect on 6th July 2010. 

Promoting sustainable communities - building places where people want to live and work

The guiding principles of the UK Sustainable Development Strategy 2005 and the basic elements of sustainable communities set out in 'Sustainable Communities: People, Places and Prosperity (A Five Year Plan)' are important. 

Promoting sustainable economic communities - improving productivity and closing the economic performance gap between the North West and other parts of the UK.

 Supporting one of the three key drivers identified in the Regional Economic Strategy to improve the Northwest's economic performance.

Making the best use of existing resources and infrastructure - building on existing concentrations of activities and infrastructure and using existing buildings and previously developed land first.

Managing travel demand, reducing the need to travel and increasing accessibility - locating development in a way that reduces the need to travel, especially by car and enables people as far as possible to meet their need locally.

As part of this 4NW commissioned a number of pieces of work looking at the issue of accessibility:

• Accessibilty Study (October 2006).  This provided an accessibility model and strategic accessibility assessments for the North West.
• An Appriasal of the consideration of Accessibility in the North West Regional Transport Strategy (April 2006)
• Methodology for the Calculation of Public Transport Accessibility (August 2003) 

Research has also been undertake to inform a review of regional car parking standards - Review of Regional Parking Standards (December 2008)

Marry opportunity and need - linking areas of economic opportunity with areas in greatest need of economic, social and physical restructuring and regeneration. 

Promote environmental quality - understanding and respecting the character and distinctiveness of places and landscapes and promoting good quality design in new development. 

In May 2006 we published a Best Practice Design Guide to provide examples of good practice on a range of design issues - North West Best Practice Design Guide (May 2006)

Mainstream rural issues - considering rural areas in a way which is integrated with other decision making.

Reduce emissions and adapt to climate change - reducing carbon dioxide emissions from all sources, and identifying assessing and applying measures to ensure effective adaptation to likely environmental, social and economic impacts of climate change. 

The North West Climate Change Action Plan sets out the region's response to the threats and opportunities that climate change presents.

4NW also developed two key tools to help policy makers and developers address issues of climate change mitigation and adaptation:

North West Integrated Appriasal Toolkit highlighted the economic, social and environmental impacts of policies, projects and development proposals and provides useful decision support information that will help to enhance the delivery of public benefits whilst according with the principles of sustainable development. The IAT was originally developed as a paper-based workbook, but was updated and transformed into an interactive and dynamic web-based decision support tool, whilst also providing a valuable information source, and a transparent and coherent audit record for those producing policies, programmes and other proposals.

Working with WWF-UK and BRE, 4NW worked with regional stakeholders to prepare a Sustainability Checklist for Developments to complement our publication, the North West Best Practice Design Guide.  The Checklist can be used by both developers and architects to review good practice and demonstrate the sustainability performance of their proposed developments, whilst planners can use it to assess planning applications and compare the sustainability of different site options at the forward planning stage.  It is a free to use web based tool.