CRP Board Meeting

25th May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

10th May 2017 was the most recent of CRP’s twice-yearly Board meetings of its 30 formal public and private sector partners, kindly hosted by the City of London Corporation at its magnificent Guildhall Art Gallery.

The meeting heard about upcoming funding opportunities from the GLA’s Senior Manager Jamie Izzard.  CRP’s Brendon Harper launched the new CRP service deliverBEST to partners.

In terms of formal decisions made: 1. CRP to continue to resource communications functions internally. 2. Simon Pitkeathley to remain CRP Co-Chair until at least after the next CRP Board meeting on 10th October 2017. 3. CRP Annual Report and Business Plan 2016/17/18 approved.

The next CRP Board meeting will be hosted by Westminster City Council – many thanks to Councillor David Harvey for making the offer.

For any further information please contact CRP’s Susannah Wilks.

CRP moves offices!

25th May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

CRP has moved offices and is now based with its accountable body Westminster City Council at:

5 Strand, London WC2N 5HR

CRP telephone numbers remain unchanged.

Thank you very much to Westminster City Council for continuing to host us. CRP now exists within its partner Northbank BID area!

CRP is also very grateful for its desk space at offices including CAPCO, DWP South London District, HOLBA, NWEC and The Crown Estate.

We look forward to seeing you at our 5 Strand offices soon!

For further information please contact CRP Director Susannah Wilks.

Groundwork London Wage Costs Offer

25th May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

art 14

As part of Westminster’s Employment Service, Recruit London are working with Groundwork London to offer tailored one to one support and specialist advice, matching and preparing people for appropriate and suitable employment and providing in‐work support to help participants settle into their new roles.

The service also provides direct support to employers, helping them to identify and adapt vacancies within their organisations and ensure that capable, prepared and well-suited candidates make the most of and succeed in these roles. Groundwork London’s grant helpfully supports employers with the wage costs of participants in the first few months.

To find out more, please contact in the first instance CRP’s Specialist Workplace Coordinator Sylvia Kankasa.

This service is funded by ESF and the Big Lottery Fund through the Building Better Opportunities programme.

Recruit London in Camden

25th May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

CamdenAbility is an innovative disability employment initiative. Funded by the London Borough of Camden, CRP is working with a network of local businesses to support Camden residents with disabilities or long term health conditions into work.

This month saw CamdenAbility host its first Business Network Meeting Event.The Network heard from CamdenAbility members University College London (UCL), Royal Free Hospital Trust, City Lit and London Borough of Camden on their initiatives to improve disability awareness within their organisations. CRP’s Specialist Workplace Coordinator, Parma Sira, and Adrian Ward, a Senior Disability Consultant with our project partners Business Disability Forum, hosted a Q&A session at the event, providing members with an opportunity to receive specialist support and advice on specific challenges they might be experiencing.

It was great to hear so many of our members taking a proactive approach to disability inclusiveness, such as UCL working closely with CamdenAbility to recruit local residents with disabilities onto their apprenticeship schemes.

The meeting was part of a series of free CamdenAbility Employer Network Events taking place throughout 2017. The next event, hosted by City Lit, brings the network together for training session on neurodiversity.

To find out more about the project, please contact Parma Sira.

Business Disability Forum Conference

FREVUE Round Table on Environmental Impacts

22nd May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

On 10th May we provided CRP Board Members and other public and private sector partners with first insights into the environmental impacts of electric freight vehicles, analysed as part of the FREVUE project, hosted by the City of London Corporation. Professor John Polak, Head of the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College, presented the findings that include results from the FREVUE project itself (over 80 electric freight vehicles deployed), an extrapolation of these results to model wider uptake levels, and the monetisation of results.

As Professor Polak concludes:  “The FREVUE results show the huge opportunity to avoid significant costs associated with air pollution, in a way that is potentially attractive to business and the public sector alike.”

The environmental benefits of electric freight vehicles are significant. With zero tailpipe emissions, these vehicles lead to an absolute reduction in NOx and PMs, the two key pollutants in London. But importantly, they also offer the benefit of high reductions in CO2 emissions. Across the FREVUE project demonstrators, the CO2 emission reduction was on average 45%.

If, by 2021, 10% of the entire London freight fleet were electric, we could therefore save £881 million through reduced health impacts and lower costs to comply with legal obligations.

Full results will be shared at the FREVUE Final Conference on 21 June 2017 at Guildhall, City of London. To register for this event, please see: http://frevue.eu/newsroom/frevue-final-conference-registration-open/

For further information, please contact the FREVUE Coordinator, Tanja Dalle-Muenchmeyer, on tanjadallemuenchmeyer@crossriverpartnership.org.

New National Air Quality Plan

22nd May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

On 5th May 2017 the government published the long-awaited new draft Air Quality Plan for consultation. The plan aims at reducing nitrogen dioxide emissions in towns and cities and to thereby improve air quality.

Defra

The consultation is open until 15 June 2017 and responses will feed into the final plan due for publication by 31 July 2017. To respond, please see https://consult.defra.gov.uk/airquality/air-quality-plan-for-tackling-nitrogen-dioxide/.

UK National Clean Air Day, 15 June 2017

22nd May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

The UK’s first ever National Clean Air Day will be on Thursday June 15th 2017. The aim of the Day is to help the public avoid and reduce air pollution, and to protect the health of families across the country.

Get involved:

  • Use parcel collection points close to home and avoid unnecessary deliveries to busy central London streets. Convenient parcel   collection points can be found at www.clickcollect.london and promotional materials can be provided to your workplace by contacting CRP’s Air Quality Project Manager Brendon Harper.
  • Find health advice, ready-made communications materials, a pledge counter and even a virtual reality experience, all free to download at www.cleanairday.org.uk.

Please join CRP and our partners on June 15th and help improve air quality and public health.

CRP Launches deliverBEST

22nd May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

CRP has launched deliverBEST, a new online tool and business support programme to help make London’s business deliveries more efficient and improve air quality.

After completing a quick online survey at www.deliverbest.london, businesses instantly receive recommendations relevant to their sector and location. CRP’s team of Business Engagement Officers are then available to discuss a business’ needs, provide implementation insights, help build business cases for change and measure results.

CRP are pleased to be piloting deliverBEST with partners Better Bankside and Victoria BID, and look forward to rolling out the programme with additional partners.

The deliverBEST online tool has been developed trough CRP’s Mayor’s Air Quality Fund-supported Clean Air Better Business programme and European Regional Development Fund-supported programme, FreightTAILS. Support to many business is free thanks to funding from the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund, Defra’s Air Quality Grant and CRP’s BID partners.

For more information please contact CRP’s Air Quality Project Manager Brendon Harper.

 

Lighting scheme to promote walking in Southwark switches on!

22nd May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

Through the Central London Sub-Regional Transport Partnership (CLSRTP), Cross River Partnership (CRP) has delivered an innovative project to promote walking in Southwark.

CRP, the London Borough of Southwark, Southwark Living Streets, and the Newington Estate Residents Association have worked together to design and install a colourful, dynamic lighting scheme at the Steadman Street entrance of the Newington Estate. This project builds on CRP’s pioneering work using lighting to overcome railway viaduct barriers to walking and movement, the Light at the End of the Tunnel.

This new lighting scheme is part of a broader initiative in the area called Walk Elephant and is designed to enliven the space and to promote walking. The lighting scheme has been designed to encourage walking between bus connections on Walworth Road and Kennington tube station. CRP is using Transport for London’s Healthy Streets checklist to measure the impact of the intervention and to gauge qualitative feedback.

The lighting is now switched on and ready for everyone to experience!

For more information please get in touch with Jane Overington, CRP’s Place Making Project Officer at janeoverington@crossriverpartnership.org

Freight TAILS in Maastricht

22nd May 2017 / Posted by CRP Team

Last week we were very pleased to be joined by representatives of CRP members Westminster City Council, London Borough of Southwark, City of London Corporation and Transport for London at our Freight TAILS network meeting in Maastricht, The Netherlands.  Attendees explored the freight- focussed topics of micro-consolidation, e-cargo bikes, waste, and HORECA (hotels, restaurants, and catering); led by our network experts Ian Wainwright and Philip Stein.

The network also considered our progress at this mid-point in the project.  We were joined by funder representatives who were impressed with the detailed discussions and focus of the network.

Freight TAILS is a network of 10 European cities focused on improving the impact of urban freight transport.  Please contact Charlotte Knell, CRP Project Manager for more details: charlotteknell@crossriverpartnership.org.  

Freight TAILS is co-funded by ERDF through the URBACT III programme.