James Lord, Landscape Partner at HTA, talks on the importance of leading with landscape

The Festival of Place is a series of events powered by The Developer which brings together enlightened professionals in the built environment working in urban property development and design to explore how to make places worth living in; places where people thrive.

James Lord was joined by Rachel Fisher, Deputy Director Land Use Policy at Department for Environment, Roger Madelin CBE, Joint Head of Canada Water and Kate Swade, Executive Director at Shared Assets. The group discussed how we can confront the challenges, spot opportunities and name the benefits with biodiversity. James focused on HTA’s new initiative; Bringing Nature Home and the importance of “leading with the landscape and allowing masterplans to be landscape led”.

“Green space should and can deliver for communities and for the planet. When you are working on urban projects, it’s very difficult to deliver productive landscapes without involving people in them because these are often developed in very densely populated areas and people need good quality green space. What we are increasingly finding is that when we talk to people about what kind of green space they want, pretty high up on the list is natural green space and access to wild green space which seems to have increased through the pandemic.” James Lord