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Clean Air Thames: Round 2 Vessel Retrofit Funding Available

19th January 2021 / Posted by CRP Team

Are you an operator running vessels on the Tidal Thames within Greater London? A second round of funding is available to help retrofit vessels operating on the inland Thames, in order to reduce emissions and improve air quality. CRP will be accepting applications until 12th February 2021.

Clean Air Thames is a three year project funded by the Mayor’s Air Quality Fund and is being delivered by CRP in partnership with the Greater London Authority (GLA), the Port of London Authority and the City of London Corporation. The project aims to assist commercial freight and passenger boat operators to reduce their hazardous emissions by up to 90% by providing funding to support retrofitting their vessels with post-exhaust treatments.

Please see here for more information on the project, and to apply please see here. For further information, please contact CRP Project Manager Sefinat Otaru.

London BIDs Summit 2021 and GLA Recovery Mission 

19th January 2021 / Posted by CRP Team

On 11th February at 10am, the GLA are hosting the London BIDs Summit 2021. This will be an opportunity for BIDs to hear and engage with the Mayor’s recovery missions for London and identify ways for BIDs to contribute to an equitable recovery for London.

The Recovery Mission aims to restore confidence in the city, minimise the impact on London’s most vulnerable community and rebuild the city’s economy and society. This includes High Streets, Strong Communities, Digital Access for all and A Green New Deal. The missions based approach was inspired by UCL’s Professor Mariana Mazzucato. This will bring together the public, private and voluntary sectors.

Best Foot Forward!

19th January 2021 / Posted by CRP Team

Two active travel webinars are being delivered by the Clean Air Villages 3 project, targeting the Angel BID and South Bank BID areas. CRP is delighted to be partnering with Groundwork for their
delivery.

  • The first webinar, Wednesday 24th February, 2pm – 3pm, is about air pollution and how to incorporate active travel into your daily life.
  • The second webinar, Monday 1st March, 2pm – 3pm, covers cycling, including safety, maintenance, costs and inclusivity.

Two more similar webinars will follow, which will be aimed at a wider audience. Watch this space!

For further information, please contact CRP Project Manager Kate Fenton.

Clean Air Deliveries for Deptford’s Charities

19th January 2021 / Posted by Ross Phillips

As part of Lewisham’s selected site for Clean Air Villages 3, CRP, London Borough of Lewisham and ecofleet have been working with businesses and community groups in Deptford to offer organisations the chance to trial electrically assisted cargo bikes for their deliveries and pickups within 5 miles.

Since November 2020, we have supported a local pharmacy to deliver to vulnerable, shielding or isolating residents around Deptford and New Cross on a weekly basis. In December 2020, a Lewisham foodbank began to use the scheme to deliver to their local hubs in New Cross, Deptford and Honor Oak, as well as residential addresses in the week leading up to Christmas.

The cargo bike has been an immense resource for organisations delivering community or charitable functions. For more information, please contact CRP Project Officer Ross Phillips.

CRP’s Spotlight On: Team London Bridge

19th January 2021 / Posted by CRP Team

This week, we are showcasing the work of CRP BID partner Team London Bridge and their new five year plan for the area. 

Team London Bridge launched their five-year business plan for 2021-26 last week. The organisation has been managing the Business Improvement District (BID) for the London Bridge area since 2006 and will be asking their BID members to vote between 25 January and 25 February as to whether they will continue funding the additional services outlined, in the ‘Our London Bridge’ proposal. The signs are positive, even in this extraordinary time, as Team London Bridge has strong local support and a track record of delivering projects that make a tangible different to the business community.

The vision for the area over the coming five years is to make London Bridge one of the most sustainable, culturally innovative and compelling places for business and tourism in the world. No small task, but to achieve this Team London Bridge is giving the community six commitments:

  • Provide added resilience to future social and economic shocks
  • Make London Bridge part of a Carbon Zero Southwark by 2030
  • Make London Bridge a ‘front stage’ for London culture
  • Make London Bridge the most enjoyable, safe, and convenient place to work in London
  • Make a green and healthy street environment that puts walking and cycling first, providing an exemplar for London
  • Make London Bridge the premier location for responsible businesses and ethically conscious employees

Of course, we still have a long way to go to emerge from the chaos caused by the pandemic, but many are seeing BIDs as a key mechanism for local areas to respond and build robust plans to adjust to the continually changing economic environment. With the help of members and partners, Team London Bridge is confident that their sustainable, socially responsible project delivery will galvanise the area over coming months and provide a catalyst for businesses to return to central London with enthusiasm and confidence.

CRP’s Positive Outlook for 2021

19th January 2021 / Posted by Susannah Wilks

Along with all our partner organisations, the CRP team is starting off 2021 virtually, with the aim of getting back to our wonderful Westminster City Council offices as soon as it is safer for everyone. A huge thank you for Councillor Rachael Robathan’s amazing Leadership and support to all Westminster’s staff, businesses, residents and services at this time.

CRP has big plans for 2021 and has already begun work on its 2021-22 Business Plan, more information in due course. We hope you like CRP’s brand new look and feel E-Newsletter style for 2021 – thank you very much to CRP’s Rachael Aldridge for the design work!

CRP’s Clean Air Villages 3 project continues to deliver at pace, including supporting various local community organisations with emergency food deliveries via cargo bikes to vulnerable people.

CRP has planned out a series of virtual monthly Lunchtime Launches to share its latest knowledge, resources, reports and best practice as widely as possible. The first of these is at 13.15-14.00 on Thursday 28th January, on the hot topic of Freight and the potential provision of new distribution hubs in central London. Please see here to register.

CRP is eagerly awaiting the outcome of its most recent collaborative funding bid to Defra – please keep your finger’s crossed for us!  We are also in active discussions with extra potential CRP partners, as well as delivering a bespoke consultancy-style contract.

The CRP team is continuing to put its best foot forward on behalf of all of our partners and funders, including accessing, analysing and presenting new data sources; using additional desktop publishing packages; on-line media interview training; new Walk and Talk sessions, to name but a few.

Looking to the future, CRP has commissioned Centre for London to work with the CRP Board partners and Transport for London’s CLSRTP group to explore radical new Town Centre Futures across London.

We don’t under-estimate the scale of the challenges still ahead for us, but building on the resilience that all of us in London and further afield have shown already, we are supremely positive about ever-increasing collaborations to deliver fulfilling futures for as many people as possible.

If you would like to find out anything further to do with CRP, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with Director Susannah Wilks.

New Lunchtime Launch Events for 2021!

19th January 2021 / Posted by CRP Team

CRP is very excited to announce a new series of monthly Lunchtime Launch events! These will be interactive, online discussions showcasing the innovative projects that CRP is delivering to drive positive change for London’s residents, businesses and visitors.

Our first Lunchtime Launch is Developing the Future of Freight Logistics in London, which will be taking place on Thursday 28th January, 1:15pm – 2pm.

Sign up here.  

For this event, CRP will be launching its new research report, The Potential for Urban Logistics Hubs in Central London, which was commissioned on behalf of the Central London Sub Regional Transport Partnership (CLSRTP), funded by Transport for London. This report identifies the market demand and locations for sustainable last mile freight delivery hubs, in collaboration with Local Authorities, landowners, Business Improvement Districts and freight operators.

We’ll be joined by expert speakers:

  • Barry Smith – Head of Policy and Strategy (West End Partnership) at Westminster City Council, who will be discussing the importance of this study for future logistics in Central London, and specifically the initiatives currently taking place in the City of Westminster.
  • Julie Bowerman – Director at Steer, who will be presenting on the findings of the Potential for Urban Logistics Hubs in Central London study.
  • Laura Jacklin – Senior Project Officer at Cross River Partnership, who will be speaking about how urban logistics hubs have an important role to play in promoting clean and efficient freight activity across the capital.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

CRP’s Staff Spotlight On: Anusha

15th December 2020 / Posted by CRP Team

CRP’s Staff Spotlight On: Anusha Rajamani 

I am a Project Officer at CRP, where the majority of my work is dedicated to the Clean Air Villages 3 project. I help support the delivery of CAV3 across five diverse villages: Westminster, Camden, Haringey, Islington and Angel BID.

Though I have been working remotely since joining and haven’t met any of the team face-to-face, I was welcomed with open arms by everyone and have been enjoying our regular well-being events such as CRP’s Step Challenge and other fun team activities!

Merry Christmas!

15th December 2020 / Posted by Susannah Wilks

As is traditional for the last CRP Newsletter of the year, we would like to wish all of CRP’s partner organisations, Board, funders, buddies and support agencies a very Merry Christmas!

As with everything this year, Christmas will also be different.

We hope that all of you will have a chance to pause and reflect on everything that we have achieved together.

We have all helped out, and that has made us happy. From cargo bike deliveries of food bank parcels and emergency medical supplies, to transforming our streets and our transport choices, to digitising our advice services including via fortnightly LiveShare webinars, to publishing guidance toolkits, to supporting our colleagues via health and wellbeing activities (CRP team walking challenge, group yoga and cocktail-making).

Thank you to all of CRP’s partners and funders – we really appreciate the flexibility you have allowed us in rising to the challenges of 2020.

When you get to your Christmas break, celebrate safely!

And we look forward to working on exciting projects with you all early in 2021!

Susannah Wilks, CRP Director.

Looking Ahead to 2021

15th December 2020 / Posted by CRP Team

As our sights turn to the year ahead, we are gearing up for some exciting new launches, events and collaborations over the next few months … here’s just a taster of what is to come!

After the success of our LiveShare events, which have attracted over 850 attendees from across 12 different countries since June, we will be launching a new monthly ‘Lunchtime Launch’ series, where we’ll be sharing the latest updates from across CRP’s projects, as well as inviting industry experts to discuss their latest research on topics ranging from air quality, freight, transport, active travel, energy, environment, culture, lighting and much more.

CRP’s Healthy Streets Everyday programme will be delivering multiple guidance resources and case studies in the new year. These will support Local Authorities, BIDs, developers, landowners and communities to make lasting and transformative change to streets throughout London by increasing walking rates and reducing emissions and exposure to toxic air pollution. In addition, traffic and pedestrian footfall data collected through our collaboration with Vivacity will be finalised early next year to help inform our partners on their localised transport networks and potential improvements to create safer, smarter and more sustainable ways to travel.

New solutions to improve air quality will be launched in 2021 as part of the Clean Air Villages (CAV) project, including TWO new cargo bike schemes and a new shared electric vehicle scheme to support local businesses in making clean, green, efficient deliveries. In addition, 15 new CAV walking routes will also be added to our Clean Air Route Finder tool, which will be getting a complete new re-design in the coming months, making it even easier to find lower polluting routes to get you from A-B.

CRP’s Clean Air Thames project has launched its second round of funding available to operators, with a deadline of 12th February 2021. We are looking forward to supporting more vessels along the Thames in reducing toxic emissions to improve the health of employees, residents and businesses.

The CRP sponsored Centre for London research project Lighting London will publish its greatly anticipated final report early in the new year, covering how light and darkness affect the lives of different groups of Londoners, how to use lighting more sustainably, and what it would take for London to become the best lit major city in the world. On the topic of lighting, the Illuminated River project’s next round of dazzling light installations will be completed in early 2021, and we can’t wait to marvel and share the mesmerising art for all to see.

Sustainable business and community recoveries from the pandemic are integral to achieve a prosperous and green future that will benefit the health of London’s residents, visitors and workers. In addition, the expansion of the London LEZ
and ULEZ, in March and October respectively, the Mayoral Elections in May, as well as the forthcoming COP26 summit in November, means there has never been a greater time to galvanise efforts to support the reduction of carbon emissions and air pollution in our urban areas.

There’s lot of to look forward to in 2021 and we’re so excited to share all of our new initiatives with you. Do follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn for all CRP’s latest updates and special announcements.

For more information, please contact CRP Communications & Business Development Manager Joshua West.

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