ABSTRACT
Unlike its uses in the USA, green infrastructure planning in the UK developed through a more holistic approach to landscape planning (Mell, 2010; Natural England & Landuse Consultants, 2009). Its development, as discussed in Chapter 2, was closely linked with the broadening environmental sustainability agenda of the New Labour government, and was, in its initial stages, developed at a subregional level by advocates and environmental agencies. Due to the operational breadth of agencies, including the Countryside Agency, Groundwork, English Nature and the Forestry Commission, green infrastructure advocates were able to conceptualise its use in a number of alternative landscape issues (Blackman & Thackray, 2007). The result was a burgeoning of green infrastructure thinking across the UK, although such diversity also led to a myriad of implementation options being developed. Over subsequent years the political and policy structures which supported the development of green infrastructure have changed. A number of the agencies investigating its value have merged, been renamed or ceased to exist; however, there is a collective will that has been retained within the environmental sector which still pursues innovative green space planning (Countryside Agency & Groundwork, 2005; Mell, 2010).
