News Articles Archive - Page 84 of 140 - Cross River Partnership

Exciting news for apprentices at Westminster City Council, CRP’s lead accountable body. As part of the Council’s ambition to deliver a world-class apprenticeship programme and to make everyone feel valued in line with the Westminster Way, Westminster’s elected Members have agreed to increase the pay rate for apprentices.

The Council will reward their existing apprentices by paying the London Living Wage to recognise the significant contribution each of them make to services across the organisation.

The salary for all apprentices will therefore increase from £8.80 per hour to a new hourly rate of £10.55 per hour backdated to 1^st August.

For further information please contact CRP’s Business Support Apprentice, Yasin Mahmood.

Last week I spent my time working on the Clean Air Villages (CAV) project at Cross River Partnership. My name is Rachael Aldridge and I’m a recent graduate from Cardiff University, where I studied Human Geography. From my course I have taken away a passion for sustainability, hence I was happy to be placed in a project which aims to make a difference in highly polluted areas throughout London. Over the week I’ve been reporting to Laura, the Business Engagement Officer for CAV.

A typical day within my week of work experience has started with meetings with various members of the team, to discover what everyone’s individual role is. This has enabled me to figure out how everyone at CRP works together towards a common goal, whilst all having different responsibilities and agendas. I was able to introduce myself to most of the team and gain a valuable insight into the workings of CRP.

Over the week, I have also taken part in business engagement for the CAV project. I’ve found this particularly interesting, as I was able to talk to different business representatives whilst thinking about potential sustainability solutions they could utilise. The areas I’ve engaged with this week are Lewisham, Shepherd’s Bush and Tooting. Here we spoke to different types of businesses, from cafes to hotels, asking them to complete a survey on the transport they’re currently using for services and deliveries. Typical questions directed at business owners include how many suppliers they have, as well as asking if they have a van or car of their own. There are definitely certain challenges to overcome in terms of business engagement. One challenge was the timings of asking questions to businesses. I’ve learnt that it’s better to catch businesses in the mornings, when they are less busy and more able to engage with the survey, meaning more reliable results can be established.

CRP then analyse this data to make suggestions to business owners, for example in the form of sharing suppliers or using cargo bikes. Throughout the week I have also attended the Hammersmith transport meeting, as well as the KCCC London networking event. Here I had the opportunity to talk to the board of the Kensington and Chelsea Chamber of Commerce, who’s members were interested in how a sustainable approach could apply to their independent businesses.

I’ve learnt a lot during my time at CRP, especially about electric vehicles and cargo bikes within London and the challenges the city faces with sustainable transport initiatives. I’d like to thank Cross River Partnership for a great week and for being so welcoming towards me. I’ve gained some valuable office experience whilst learning a lot about London’s air pollution and beyond.

The third round of the Mayor’s Good Growth Fund will open for applications on 2 September. There is over £20 million funding available for a broad range of public, private and third-sector organisations in London who want to drive regeneration in their local area.

To ensure a well-balanced programme, the Mayor of London is encouraging collaborative proposals that bring together a range of partners to focus resources and seize opportunities in local areas across London. There are a series of place-based workshops taking place during the first two weeks in September to introduce potential applicants to the Good Growth Fund. To sign up to one of these please click here.

Round 3 applications will be fully managed through the Greater London Authority’s online investment management system (GLA OPS). Instructions on how to register with GLA OPS are available here on their website. If you are intending to apply it is worth registering on the system as soon as you can.

To find out more information about the Mayor’s Good Growth Fund please click here.

London’s biggest Car Free Day takes place on 22^nd September. The Mayor of London and Transport for London have partnered to ‘Reimagine’ London car-free, while walking, cycling and exploring the city. Hundreds of activities will take place across more than 20km of closed streets in Central London – the equivalent of nearly 200 football pitches in length – including Tower Bridge, London Bridge and much of the City of London. Eighteen boroughs are also organising events including working with residents to create local ‘Play Streets’ – safe spaces where children can play, and communities get together. London Play have come up with a useful guidance on how to organise play streets in your local area here. As part CRP’s Healthy Streets Everyday project we are encouraging project partners to participate in what is set to be an exciting day of events!

For support and further information please contact: jaychauhan@crossriverpartnership.org.

The National Lottery Community Fund recently launched its Climate Action Strategy and announced that it was making a £100 million Climate Action Fund available, dedicated at helping communities to tackle climate change.

For further details on past projects and how to apply for funding for community-led projects please click here.

For further details, please contact CRP’s Carol Quamina

The Mayor’s Construction Academy (MCA) which brings together construction skills training providers and construction employers to ensure greater collaboration across the industry, held a stakeholder networking event at London’s Living Room, City Hall on 29 July. The event was opened by the Deputy Mayor, Jules Pipe, who announced four new Quality Marked Providers as well as highlighting plans to target an area in south-west London with no existing hub coverage. Also presenting were a range of training providers providing updates on overall progress made to date due to closer collaboration with employers in their hub areas.

Full details on the training providers can be found here.

For further information, please contact CRP’s Carol Quamina.

CRP’s Smart Electric Urban Logistics (SEUL) project will be the subject of an upcoming GreenBiz webcast on Thursday 5^th September 2019.

The webcast will cover:

practical solutions that UPS have deployed in overcoming barriers to fleet electrification
insights from testing smart-grid and energy storage systems in real-world operations
how to make the business case for investing in and testing new technologies

Project partners UPS and UK Power Networks, alongside CRP and subcontractor UK Power Networks Services, will showcase to an international audience the groundbreaking work taking place her in London. SEUL is a 2.5-year project co-funded by the Office for Low Emission Vehicles in partnership with Innovate UK.

More details and registration for the webcast can be found here.

Euston Green Link serves as a low exposure alternative to often congested and heavily polluted Euston Road for people cycling or walking between The Regent’s Park and Euston Station.

Over the past year, Euston Town has implemented a variety of measures including, most recently, a green wall at Drummond and Gower Streets to make the Link a pleasant route for pedestrians and cyclists.

In early August, CRP continued to support Euston Town BID by completing the second half of a monitoring exercise along the Link which runs along Longford Street and Drummond Street. CRP carried out before- and after- monitoring along the link to assess the impact of the BID’s interventions. This including active traveller counts and surveying passers-by about their impressions of the street. The results of the exercise will be analysed and presented in a comprehensive report to the BID.

To learn more about the Green Link, visit https://eustontown.com/eustongreenlink.

To find a clean air route near you, visit https://www.cleanairroutes.london/.

For further information, please contact CRP Project Manager, Sefinat Otaru.

The Clean Air Villages team are excited to be out and about engaging with businesses in the 13 village areas, identified across London as part of the DEFRA funded air quality project.

During the summer we will be visiting the villages to talk to businesses about their deliveries and servicing to support them in finding ways to reduce their impact on congestion and pollution.

We are looking to expand our Ultra-Low Emission Supplier Directory to all the areas, so that we can promote deliveries and services that are made using ultra-low emission vehicles! If you know of a business that could be on the directory contact us!

For further information please contact CRP’s laurajacklin@crossriverpartnership.org

CRP was delighted to be invited by the chair of the London Lighting Engineers Group (LoLEG) to share our plans to consult on a Lighting Strategy for central London at their annual conference at Chelsea Football Club.

The aim of the proposed strategy is to raise the ambition and value of lighting projects across central London, building on the interest generated by initiatives including The Illuminated River.

It is envisaged that the Lighting Strategy will include a review of best practice and a typology for central London, which will highlight the benefits of effective civic lighting to a wide range of public and private stakeholders. There are a number of potential positive impacts of lighting across art, culture, heritage, placemaking, accessibility, health and wellbeing, economic growth and public safety. Protecting and enhancing conditions for biodiversity can also be addressed by considerate lighting projects.

The strategy development will begin with a broad stakeholder engagement event, to be held on 25 September 2019, 11.30am – 2.30pm at the award-winning Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre SE1. Many thanks to CRP partner South Bank BID for arranging this award-winning venue: 2008 RIBA London Award.

The opening address will be given by Dr. Peter Bonfield OBE FREng Vice-Chancellor of the University of Westminster and from October 2019, President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET).

Please get in touch with CRP’s Susannah Wilks if you would like to attend.

Archives: News Articles

WCC Apprentices to be paid London living wage

Work experience at Cross River Partnership

Round Three of the Mayor’s Good Growth Fund

London Car Free Day

National Lottery Communication Fund Climate Action Strategy

Mayor’s Construction Academy Stakeholder Event

Super-Charging Electric Vehicle Fleets with Smart Electric Urban Logistics

Monitoring Euston Green Link

CAV Conversations

Lighting Strategy for central London at LoLEG conference