Urban green spaces and trees have substantial beneficial effects on people's health, thermal comfort, pollution and noise reduction, sustainable urban drainage and carbon sequestration. The proposed research focuses on the radiative thermal performance of urban trees in the context of summer thermal comfort and cooling energy consumption in towns and cities that are subject to increasing heat stress under projected climate change. Trees and green spaces offer significant cooling benefits, thereby helping to create comfortable micro-climates in towns and cities. They are also effective, though to a lesser extent, in ameliorating the urban heat island (UHI) effect. Buildings shaded by trees experience 25-50% reduction of cooling load, often removing the need for energy intensive mechanical cooling. The effective use of trees and green spaces in urban environments by building designers and urban planners has been impeded by the lack of fundamental insights and quantitative information. It has been found that tree species differ by up to 9C in their canopy surface temperatures. Choosing the right tree species for urban planting schemes is critical for maximizing their cooling effects, but systematic information is currently not available. A further obstacle is the lack of an integrated multidisciplinary approach to the investigation of thermal performance of urban trees, where a tree or a group of trees were treated as a 'black box' , i.e., without consideration of the fundamental physical and (plant) physiological processes, nor the influence of the urban environment on these processes. The results thus have limited applicability to other urban settings. Crucially, the consideration of infrared radiation, which accounts for over 50% of the solar radiation reaching the Earth, is largely missing in previous investigations. The proposed study aims to overcome these obstacles by investigating urban tree - built environment interactions, focusing on infrared radiative energy exchange, and in the context of prevention of summer overheating in cities. Specific objectives include: - quantify, for the first time, radiative and other cooling mechanisms of selected common urban trees based on a multidisciplinary approach that integrates building and climate physics with plant physiology, addressing radiative energy exchange, tree physiological processes, urban built forms and materials and the influences of tree forms and species; - provide guidance to building / landscape designers and urban planners for effective integration of trees in towns and cities including tree species selection and appropriate urban form and building materials; - develop an online presentation tool to allow rapid access to and effective utilisation of the results and guidance generated from the work.

Cycling can contribute to physical and mental health and wellbeing among the older population by providing an active means of independent mobility to connect with the community and engage in social activities. But whilst cycling accounts for 23 per cent of all journeys for people aged 65 and older in the Netherlands, 15 per cent in Denmark and 9 per cent in Germany, it represents only 1 per cent of all journeys in the UK. This research starts from the premise that older people in the UK are often portrayed as citizens who lack the capacity to cycle and that this translates into design guidance that fails to consider how the built environment could be transformed to support cycling amongst an ageing population. As people age, cycling becomes more physically challenging, forcing many to stop. Some people do adapt to changing physical circumstances and continue to cycle in older age. However, many lack the desire to cycle because of risks associated with its practice in an unsupportive environment and fear of personal injury. Projects to improve cycle infrastructure coupled with the growth in availability of assistive technologies such as electric bicycles ('e-bikes') could have a significant role in creating opportunities for older people to return to cycling or prevent them from giving up. The aim of this research is to better understand how built environment and technological design is shaping the willingness and ability of older people to cycle, how they interact and experience the built environment when cycling, and how this affects their wellbeing. Attention will focus on elements of design at different scales from buildings, to neighbourhoods, to wider town networks and also on bicycle technology and equipment. The research will investigate the range of policies and programmes and guidance available across the EU targeted at promoting more inclusive cycling amongst the older population and compare this with activity in the UK. A range of existing UK data sources will be analysed to identify trends in participation in cycling across the in the UK and the extent to which recent projects and programmes are encouraging older people to cycle. A mix of innovative methods to understand the relationship between cycling in the built environment and wellbeing will be used with residents approaching later life (aged 50-59) and in later life (60+) across the Bristol, Oxford, Reading and Southampton areas. First, biographic ('cycling life-history') interviews will be conducted in order to understand the role of past experiences of cycling and the influence of life events such as family and social relationships, employment and wider social, economic, environmental and technological change; Second, mobile interviews and observation will be conducted with participants as they make a regular journey by cycle in order to capture their everyday experience of cycling and to measure how interaction with the built environment affects mental physical and mental wellbeing; Third, new and returning older cycle users will be invited to take part in a unique 8-week experiment to measure how their (re)engagement with both conventional and electric cycling in the built environment affects their physical and mental wellbeing. A rich dataset incorporating qualitative (textual, cartographic, video) and quantitative (numerical measures of wellbeing) data will be used to develop a toolkit for use by policy makers and practitioners. This will advise how the built environment and technology could be designed to support and promote cycling amongst current and future older generations and provide evidence of how this could improve independent cycling mobility and health and wellbeing. The toolkit will include briefing notes linked to design guidance and a documentary video, made with participants of the study, distributed directly to policy makers, practitioners and stakeholder and made available on the Web with the aim of generating maximum impact.

Community consultation is important for ensuring that we get a built environment that is fit for purpose and could be an opportunity for serious dialogue with the community about how best to make places for everybody, rather than the perfunctory and excluding affair it often is now. There is to date little consensus on how best to gather community responses to planning proposals to feed into the design and development of successful (high social, environmental and economic value) places. Ultimately community consultation has largely untapped potential for learning how the design of buildings and places can be done better, particularly important in the Climate Emergency and for 'building back better' in the aftermath of the pandemic. Although the focus of the project is on the UK, the problems are global and the outcomes scalable. In some parts of the country community consultation ceased during the pandemic, with decision making being delegated to pressurised Planning Officers who may not always have the interests of the community at heart. An imminent government review of planning in England is seeking to make the system more streamline. This could jeopardise community consultation which is known for being difficult and slow. A robust, inclusive, value for money format (digital and physical) for gathering data on what communities want from their buildings and places in the long term is urgently needed. To create such a platform is the aim of CCQoL. Led by the University of Reading, with Co-Investigators in all four countries of the UK, CCQoL is a collaboration with the Quality of Life Foundation, the community consultation platform Commonplace, inclusive consultation experts Urban Symbiotics and the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CACHE). It is supported by a wide range of policy and industry organisations including the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG), Civic Voice and the British Property Federation. Following a review of best practice in community consultation, user experiences (face to face and digital) will be designed for piloting on real planning applications in each of the four countries of the UK. Consultations will take place in an 'urban room', a community space, disused shop or pop up in the city with parallel, but interconnected, consultations on line. Community members will be asked to contribute to the making of maps to show what they value in the area and to anticipate the potential impacts of the planning proposal. A variety of experimental formats will be used to make the consultation as engaging as possible. Locally based Community Partnership Managers will be employed to encourage inclusive participation. The platforms will be refined based on learning from the pilots. The main output will be a digital format for community consultation. This will link to the CCQoL platform, a series of digital maps which will offer a standardised format for gathering data on what communities want on an ongoing basis, scalable for use elsewhere with potential applications for other spheres of decision making. The Quality of Life Foundation and Commonplace will be responsible for the further development of the platform beyond the life of the project. Guidance for delivering face to face consultation on the ground will also be developed, as well as a series of reports on community consultation for each of the four UK planning contexts. This pragmatic project will be underpinned by robust academic research published through a series of refereed journal papers. A generation has grown up designing virtual environments in games such as Sim City. CCQoL will provide the next step towards a digitally generated and constructed, co-created built environment. The foundations of such a future need to be designed with great care to ensure that it fulfils its positive potential.