Tresham Garden Village: A natural capital impact assessment

Description

This project carried out a natural capital and ecosystem services assessment of Tresham Garden Village, a proposed major housing and community development in East Northamptonshire. This project addresses the question: how will an assessment of natural capital and ecosystem services work in practice for a major urban development? Natural capital was mapped across the site under the baseline (pre-development) condition and under a draft masterplan produced by the Tresham Garden Village design team. The capacity of the natural environment to deliver 11 different ecosystem services was then modelled and mapped at high resolution across the site. Under the proposed masterplan, the delivery of almost all ecosystem services is predicted to increase, with the exception of agricultural production, and water flow and biodiversity representing a slight decline. A workshop was held to raise awareness of the natural capital and ecosystem services assessment approach being taken at Tresham, including presenting some of the results of the assessment. This project has demonstrated how a natural capital and ecosystem services approach can be applied to the planning and development process in regard to a major development.