Case study - A vision for the Cole Valley
Investing to benefit wildlife, heritage and people
This vision was published in October 2019 by the Environment Agency and the Tame Valley Wetlands Landscape Partnership. It covers a substantial section of the River Cole, and is split into two elements. Firstly, to drive “cultural interest” in the area, to encourage investment. Secondly, investing in biodiversity, flood mitigation and water quality enhancements, ensuring that the River Cole and its surrounds continue to benefit the wildlife and residents of Birmingham, Solihull and North Warwickshire for many years to come.
Underpinning the vision are four objectives:
- Create a high quality blue/green corridor along the River Cole through East Birmingham, North Solihull and North Warwickshire that can be used as an alternative travel route for local or commuting journeys without the car.
- Enhance the natural and historic environment, improve biodiversity and water quality, reduce flood risk and highlight the opportunities for natural capital and environmental net gain.
- Re-connect local communities and businesses with their local public open space, help them value what the River provides for them, improving wellbeing and resilience through social prescribing and identifying links between behavioural change and flooding/environmental improvements.
- Stimulate partnership working across multiple stakeholders to coordinate approaches to catchment-wide issues, deliver local policy aspirations and unlock multiple funding opportunities.
The blend of catchment-wide and locality approaches is consistent with the spirit of this plan, and will boost the resilience of places along the river to climate breakdown.
We ensure that land is used wisely
It is impossible to become a ‘self-sufficient’ region when it comes to local food production, but we can ensure that the food we produce has high nutritional value, suits the locality, and makes best possible use of the space. We will also need to think about the resilience of the food we import(19), which will be subject to increased demand due to population growth, geopolitical tensions and locked-in climate breakdown.
(19). See ‘Back From The Future’ by Birmingham Food Council, which indicates that our imported food – which currently comprises 40% of our intake – is likely to no longer be available by 2050: https://www.birminghamfoodcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/BackFromTheFuture_ HorizonScanningProjectReport_BirminghamFoodCouncil_January2018.pdf