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Working Group Activity

Urban Design Working Group

The Urban Design Working Group (UDWG) has taken as its starting point the work of the Urban Design Alliance in Scotland, which had previously signaled its intention to disband in favour of the UDWG. There is currently a lack of inter-disciplinary focus on urban design issues at a strategic level within Scotland. To address this gap, the group will explore issues associated with urban design, focussing in particular on practical aspects, and promote these issues to a wide audience of stakeholders including non-governmental organisations, civil servants and MSPs in Scotland. The group re-constituted in June 2006, and has identified the following key areas of activity:

  • Arrange study visits with multi-disciplinary attendance to develop awareness and promote best practice
  • Arrange workshops with multi-disciplinary attendance to discuss issues of common interest
  • Maintain a reactive role in responding as a BEFS cross-disciplinary working group to government consultations with implications for urban design
  • Develop discrete project activities.
Historic Environment Review Taskforce

In 2001, the publication of the Scottish Environment LINK Historic Environment Audit concluded that there were many areas of concern in terms of the way we care for and use the historic environment in Scotland. The taskforce has been working ever since to seek Ministerial support for the preparation of a wide-ranging, independent review of the historic environment in Scotland. In February 2004, the taskforce led a series of three Scoping Meetings to explore issues surrounding the historic environment in relation to People, Economics and Managing Change. The aim of the meetings was to gather information and views on the need for a Review of the Historic Environment in Scotland, and in part to feed into the work of the Historic Environment Advisory Council for Scotland (HEACS). Notes of the meetings are available on this website on the Archive page.  Views were gathered together in a campaign document called ‘The Bigger Picture’ which was supported by 26 organisations and launched to an audience of stakeholders, civil servants and MSPs in June 2004, along with a series of pages of information linked from this website. The document called for the introduction of a new system of Historic Environment Auditing in order that we can better quantify and understand the contribution that the historic environment makes to society in Scotland. HERT was very pleased to see in May 2005 a Ministerial announcement supporting the creation of a new system of Historic Environment Audit. HERT is now keeping a watching brief on the process of developing the Audit. The Audit is being led by Historic Scotland, in collaboration with a Stakeholder Advisory Group representing key stakeholder interests, including BEFS.

Sustainable Development Working Group

The purpose of the Sustainable Development Working Group is to promote the built environment within the sustainable development agenda of governance and to promote the importance of sustainable development to built environment organisations, interests and delivery agents. In pursuit of this objective, the group facilitated a workshop in June 2005, which gathered views from stakeholders on the primary role of a sustainable built environment. The event gathered views from a wide range of participants which were fed into the drafting of Scotland’s Sustainable Development Strategy: Choosing Our Future, published in December 2005.