Actor, presenter and environmentalist Simon O’Brien is to become the Chair of the Liverpool Green Strategy Group – tasked with scrutinising green space usage and helping to formulate the city’s Local Plan as well advising the City Council on how to make Liverpool a more sustainable city.
Over the next two years the committee will oversee the environmental aspect of all areas of the Local Plan as it is drafted for presentation to central government by 2017.
Simon said: “As a truly independent person with no affiliations or political axe to grind, just someone who is passionately interested about the future of our incredible city, I have decided that this is an amazing chance to influence the process from an ecological point of view which is often still lacking when grand plans are being formulated.
“I want Liverpool to be mentioned in the same breath as Copenhagen, Curitiba and Vancouver when it comes to sustainable development. I can’t wait to start by finding the right people to form the committee which will then take a long hard look at the early draft of the Local Plan, ask relevant and awkward questions, as well as bringing fresh ideas and thinking to the process”.
Mayor Anderson said: “We are committed to producing a visionary Local Plan which will guide Liverpool’s growth, economic development and regeneration while protecting its heritage and green space.
“Therefore the City will proceed with gathering robust and current evidence and assess demand for new housing, employment, leisure, recreation, shopping and other uses.
“However, Liverpool’s residents need to have the confidence that this process will examine the sustainability of our current green space for the future and I am pleased that Simon O’ Brien has agreed to chair the independent review of our green space and the recommendations from the strategy group will help inform the process we are going through.”
