News Articles Archive - Page 80 of 140 - Cross River Partnership

This month we are launching CRP’s Countdown to Christmas Campaign! Beginning Monday 25th November we’ll be using social media to showcase a selection of great businesses from our Clean Air Villages supplier directory.

Whether its champagne for your office party, or flowers for that special someone, these businesses are all using low or zero emission vehicles to help deliver a greener, cleaner Christmas! Keep your eyes on our Twitter to follow the entire Christmas Campaign and watch out for a special addition to the directory coming soon!

According to Defra (the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs), ‘air quality is the largest environmental health risk in the UK’. With London’s roads regularly exceeding World Health Organisation guidelines for dangerous emissions, air quality needs tackling.

CRP has successfully applied for funding from Defra’s Air Quality Grant in the previous three rounds, and has been delivering an award-winning Clean Air Villages air quality project that has been working with businesses to support in streamlining deliveries and servicing in order to reduce local congestion and pollution.

CRP has submitted a joint application for the next round of Defra funding, with 16 project partners* coming together from across London with the aim to collaborate on an air quality project that would deliver local and wider air quality improvements.

The photo (above) is from recent Clean Air Villages business engagement in Covent Garden, Westminster. CRP surveyed food and beverage sector businesses about their deliveries, in order to propose a solution to implement that will result in reduced congestion and pollution.

For further information, please contact CRP’s Kate Fenton.

*Westminster City Council as lead authority with; London Boroughs of Camden, Hammersmith & Fulham, Haringey, Islington, Lambeth, Lewisham, Merton, Richmond upon Thames, Wandsworth, City of London Corporation, and the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, as well as Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) angel.london, The Fitzrovia Partnership, Northbank BID and South Bank BID.

Historic England held a Conference on Lighting on 25th October 2019, to coincide with the Where Light Falls display at St. Paul’s Cathedral.

It was an information-packed day of talks and discussion, with contributions from organisations including the Greater London Authority, the City of London Corporation, Speirs and Major, Signify, Central, and LUCIE.

The Mayor’s Night Time Czar, Amy Lame, encouraged a holistic approach to the night time and lighting, and welcomed the linkages that CRP is drawing out to mental health and wellbeing issues, depression alleviation and health costs abatement potential.

If Lighting is something that you are interested in collaborating on, please get in touch with CRP Director, Susannah Wilks.

The National Lottery has set up The Climate Action Fund and is a potential way of building on the scale, scope and lifetime of many excellent CRP partner project community activities that are already underway.

The Deadline for expressions of interest is: 18th December, 2019.

If this Fund is something that you are interested in bidding for on a collaborative basis, please get in touch with CRP Director, Susannah Wilks.

Our two-and-a-half year Smart Electric Urban Logistics (SEUL) project was celebrated in style at London’s City Hall, in a joint event with the Greater London Authority on 4th November. Project partners UPS, UK Power Networks, CRP and UK Power Networks Services were invited to join Gnewt and the GLA to share initial results from both Innovate UK-backed Low Emission Freight Trial projects.

The SEUL project has seen 20 UPS trucks converted to fully electric models, supported by an innovative smart charging system integrating energy storage. This has delivered significant benefits in terms of reduced emissions on London’s streets, which were outlined on the day by Andy Eastlake from the LowCVP.

The audience, including members from local and national government, as well as the vehicle and energy industries, heard from each of the SEUL project partners about the successes and lessons from the project, and had the chance to pose their own questions in an insightful Q&A panel session. CRP’s Tom Linton-Smith described the importance of collaboration across sectors and early liaison with energy suppliers, as fleet operators transition to electric vehicles.

Much more information, including project factsheets and postcards can be found on the SEUL project page. Many thanks to the GLA for hosting the event, and to all our project partners for such a successful and innovative project!

Recently, the Clean Air Villages (CAV) team have been out and about in Brixton to talk to as many businesses as possible in the local area about a new shared electric van which will be available for them to use for free!

Brixton has long been recognised as an air pollution hotspot, with traffic, congestion and old diesel vehicles contributing to high pollution levels. Cross River Partnership are working with Zipcar, Lambeth Council and Brixton BID to launch this new scheme as part of the CAV project to encourage businesses to switch to cleaner modes of transport for their deliveries and pick ups, in turn helping reduce the levels of air pollution in the local area, and promote long term positive change.

The CAV team were promoting the van all over the Brixton, and engaged with over 200 businesses around Pop Brixton, Brixton Village Market, Electric Avenue and Brixton Station Road. The team received good reception from both large shops and market stalls, and felt there was a real buzz around the idea in the area!

The electric van on offer is a Renault Kangoo ZE, and will have a dedicated parking bay next to a charge point on Pulross Road. It is hoped the van will enable businesses to work together to improve local air quality, reducing the number of vehicles on congested roads.

A small number of businesses will be trialling the use of the van from 25th November, with the full launch taking place on 3rd December.

If you would be interested in using the shared electric van for your business, please contact Kate Fenton (CAV Project Manger) for more information.

The CRP team attended a chocolate making (and eating!) workshop as part of their away day earlier this month. The afternoon involved fun group activities and individual creative tasks, resulting in some delicious chocolate truffles, slabs, fudge, and cocktails. It was a great bonding session and made the team feel like real chocolatiers!

If you fancy trying your hand at chocolate making, visit https://www.mychocolate.co.uk/

We were delighted to be part of the Freight in the City Expo this year to highlight the many projects we have, and continue to work on, that focus on logistics and freight in London. The event showcased the future mobility of HGVs being electrified as well as last mile solutions including cargo bikes in inner city environments.

The event highlighted how the automotive sector is looking to adapt to the clean air agenda in cities and how advances in technology enables this change to be made at a shorter timescale. This was the chance for the CRP team to talk to logistics providers about the lessons learnt from the SEUL project and to make them aware of the Clean Air Villages project taking place in 13 areas in London.

As part of the event we wanted to know from the delegates what the sector personally felt about air pollution and how their business views the issue of air quality. Our wordcloud above gives a breakdown of some of some of the issues that were raised. Air pollution affects all in a community, so it was brilliant to hear all the companies looking to the future and wanting to be part of a solution.

On Friday 1st November, Cross River Partnership hosted a special webinar with Kristine Solgaard and Terje Elvsaas from the Olso Liveability Programme, as part of a best practise knowledge sharing event for present Healthy Streets Everyday (HSE) project partners.

The Olso Liveability Programme embarked on a campaign 2 years ago with physical and psychological reach. Accelerated by political will, Oslo city centre has become a more pleasant place to be in, improving people’s physical and mental health, as well as business footfall. This hasn’t always been the case and our Oslo partners described the anger and ferocity they still face in this process of change.

Improving city life through playful co-created design has seen Oslo citizens shaping vital public amenity from additional toilets and water fountains, to more and better seating. Whilst not totally car free, 760 car parking spaces have been removed in 1.3 km² of the city centre to make space for improved city life. Playgrounds have replaced car parks and citizens can now move freely through truly recreational areas with interesting streetscapes, punctuated with pop up events and community happenings.

It is clear Oslo are successfully challenging their citizens attachment to cars, as Kristine Solgaard said, ‘cars are perceived as symbols of freedom.’

The webinar learnings provided an interesting parallel for our partners and they were guided by our hosts to accelerate incremental improvements to more permanent healthier streets. 11 out of 16 HSE Local Authority partners have declared a Climate Emergency so we need to learn fast and grow strong. Watch this space!

You can listen to the webinar and view the presentation slides from the event on the HSE project page, downloads a links section.

For more information on the Healthy Streets Everyday programme please contact Kiran Rao, HSE Project Manager.

This month we launched the Clean Air Thames funding social media campaign!
The project, which has received £500,000 from the Mayor of London’s Air Quality Fund, aims to reduce polluting emissions on the Tidal Thames by retrofitting 11 inland commercial freight and passenger vessels with post-exhaust treatments, in turn reducing particulate matter, nitrogen oxides and sulphur oxides by up to 90%.

Cross River Partnership has partnered with the Port of London Authority, Greater London Authority and City of London Corporation to run the project over the next 3 years.

We are encouraging operators of vessels on the Tidal Thames within Greater London to apply for the funding. Please visit our Clean Air Thames project page to view the participation guidelines, as well as funding application form.

Deadline for applications for Round 1 Funding is 10th December, 2019.

Archives: News Articles

We’re Counting Down to a Green Christmas

CRP Submits Application to Defra’s Air Quality Grant Programme

Be part of the future of lighting in London

Applications open for Climate Action Fund

Smart Electric Urban Logistics final event

We are Electrifying Brixton

Chocobonanza CRP Away Day

CRP Showcase at at Frieght in the City Expo

Healthy Streets Everyday partners learn from Oslo’s transformation

Applications open for Clean Air Thames Funding (Roud 1)