The retail sector is crucial to the economic health and vitality of towns and cities and is a core component of the national economy, but is experiencing an ongoing period of change and the challenges faced by centres are being met in different ways, with different outcomes. Consumers are behaving, shopping and using urban centres in new and diverse ways and many retailing centres have experienced falling footfall, retailer closures and a rise in empty retail units. In an attempt to reverse the cycle of decline, centres need to be multi-functional places and policy-makers are encouraging more mixed use development. Large-scale mixed-use re-development of obsolete stock, novel temporary land uses, events and public realm works are being used to try to make urban centres more attractive and increase their competitive edge. Yet, not everyone is experiencing the benefits of these changes. Mistrust, tension and conflict can arise from land use changes and become barriers to further renewal and change, limiting the effectiveness of these "town centre first" policies. A recent ESRC-funded study undertaken by researchers at Manchester Metropolitan University blamed these tensions and lack of co-operation as significant contributors to the continued declined of retailing in many centres (Parker, 2015). This project seeks to explore one of the largest stakeholder groups within the sector. The objectives and behaviour of land and property owners, developers and investors are significant to the use and form of retailing centres. The project explores how ownership and the behaviour of this stakeholder group impact on the sector, by exploring issues around changing ownership and use patterns; innovations in design form; the ability of the industry to respond to change; and the ways the group engages and interacts with other stakeholders in urban centres. Thus, it aims to examine how their expectations, perceptions, practices and co-operation help or limit experimentation with new uses, building types and designs. The research will explore issues around: whether retailers and landlords in city centres are becoming more or less diverse; whether new design formats, flexible uses and large scale redevelopments can help struggling centres; the extent to which established practices and procedures in the real estate market encourage or even hinder new uses; and whether stakeholders can work together in better ways for the future health of town and city centres. These issues will be examined using five case study cities over the period 1997-2017: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Sheffield and Nottingham. The project will bring together different data that has not been available previously, to map, measure and identify any links between changes in land and building use, vacancy and ownership over the last 20 years. It will analyse and identify new developments and novel land and building uses and designs and, by talking to developers, designers, planners and occupiers, the researchers will identify the factors shaping these changes and how they impact on cities and shoppers. The project will examine established real estate market practices, such as lease lengths, rent review terms, repair obligations and use clauses to see how adaptable the industry is to change when shoppers and retailers want new and unusual property uses and forms. Finally, the researchers will talk to different centre users, managers and owners to explore how relationships might work well or badly and identify good practice for the creation of new developments and adaptions to the existing building stock to help the retail sector in cities.

Developments, such as housing estates, generally mean that more rain "runs off" the surface compared to green fields. This increased "urban runoff" often causes more river or surface water flooding downstream and also contains pollutants washed off from surfaces, such as metals and oil from cars. Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) are a drainage concept that aims to mimic the pre-development hydrology by constructing systems to pass rain water back into the ground or store it, and then release it slowly back into rivers. Often this involves creating grass channels and wetlands, which can create attractive urban areas, habitat for animals and plants and also trap and remove pollutants. SuDS are one of the components of the Green Infrastructure ideal. Research has shown that SuDS can deliver these "ecosystem services" and design guidance has been developed. However the SuDS often have a higher land take than traditional piped drainage, a concern to housing developers. They also have very different, often poorly understood, maintenance requirements. There is also uncertainty about their longevity and how to manage any long term accumulation of pollutants. Water Companies "adopt" piped drainage, but in England the long term adoption and payment for SuDS is uncertain. Planning guidance and legislation requiring SuDS to be included in schemes and adopted by local authorities has also been watered down as part of the Government's lighter touch planning policy. This means that achieving the additional benefits of lower pollution in rivers, improved urban environment and increased biodiversity are dependent on SuDS being able to be economically attractive to developers. However there are no standard guidelines for this economic evaluation and different schemes use different methods and boundaries for calculations. Therefore valuation of SuDS needs be standardised so that schemes can be compared, the appropriate amount of land allocated for high quality designs and to give confidence to property professionals in project appraisal. This project will work with stakeholders, including developers, regulators and SuDS designers to arrive at best practice guidance for calculating the capital costs of SuDS, quantifying the economic values to developments (e.g. house prices, willingness to pay for upkeep by residents) and to explore what other contributions can be sought for off-site benefits. Key partners will be the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) who provide professional guidance to quantity surveyors and valuation surveyors. We will work with RICS to create a professional Guidance Note and test this against case study projects. In addition to this valuation toolkit, training materials will be developed and delivered to surveying professionals. The overall aim is to increase the uptake of high quality SuDS designs through synthesising and translating the environmental, social and engineering benefits in a way that allows their inclusion in decision-making processes. The University of Portsmouth team is made up of engineers who have studied the technical aspects of SuDS for over 20 years and valuation surveyors who have experience of valuing social and environmental services. This multidisciplinary team are therefore well placed to deliver this innovative project.

Injecting a Natural Capital Planning Tool into Green-Blue Infrastructure Management The UK Natural Environment White Paper called for better delivery and management of green-blue infrastructure (GBI). Specifically: "Planning has a key role in securing a sustainable future. However, the current system is failing to achieve the kind of integrated and informed decision-making that is needed to support sustainable land use." (HM Government 2011:21). In Biodiversity 2020 Strategy Defra states: "Through reforms of the planning system, we will take a strategic approach to planning for nature. We will retain the protection and improvement of the natural environment as core objectives of the planning system." (Defra 2011:6). The National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF) concludes that "Local planning authorities should set out a strategic approach in their Local Plans, planning positively for the creation, protection, enhancement and management of networks of biodiversity and green infrastructure" (DCLG 2012:25). To meet these objectives for better assessment and management of GBI values a pilot Natural Capital Planning Tool (NCPT) was developed (2014), using the lens of Natural Capital (NC), allowing the indicative but systematic assessment of GBI values for planning procedures but without demanding specific ecological expertise by the tool user; The tool is available in a demo version but has not been live tested or undergone a peer-review process. This project aims to improve the incorporation and appreciation of GBI value and benefits within UK planning policy and decision making in terms of holistically and systematically assessing its NC and ESS. The end-users engaged in all stages of the project can include 7 case study partners (CSP's) covering both, governmental authorities and industry partners: Birmingham City Council, Central Bedfordshire Council, Southampton City Council, South Downs National Park Authority, Skanska, Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council and Tarmac. Additionally there are other end-users: Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) and Natural England. To deliver the project we have created 3 Work Packages (WPs). In WP1 the NCPT will be tested at several case study sites covering different GBI settings from rural to urban and different stages of the planning process from local to strategic. The NCPT application will enable end-users to establish more sustainable plans and designs and will also inform the development of the NCPT. WP2 emphasises translation via the running of 2 end-user engagement workshops to: (1) unpack and revise the NCPT, (2) assess the industry/planner demand, (3) explore and discuss the barriers, opportunities and requirements for system integration and industry acceptance, and (4) build capacity and new partnerships and networks to further develop and mainstream the NCPT. In addition we will establish a project steering group with representation from all project partners with the purpose to: (1) review and discuss subsequent outputs, (2) oversee the process and project delivery, (3) offer CSP's and other end-users a platform to discuss, exchange ideas, and share good and bad experiences; and to (4) explore the long-term opportunities and barriers for system integration of the NCPT and the value of GBI into planning more generally. Furthermore we will establish a NCPT review and examination group including experts from RTPI, RICS, Natural England and potentially other stakeholders such as IEEM, Defra, industry partners and other end-users. WP3 uses collected feedback to update the then peer-reviewed NCPT which will be published on a web portal making it available to the wider planning/developer community.

It is widely recognised that low density development is unsustainable and generates significant Green House Gases (GHGs). Nevertheless, most UK development is built on greenfield land where public transportation is poor and services are scarce. If the UK is serious about 'net zero', then new ways of planning and developing are urgently required. 'Urban retrofit' is defined as repairing existing places by adapting urban form to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions, protect the environment and support sustainable lifestyles. Changes to the layout of neighbourhoods are starting to be delivered, including via infrastructure programmes such as separated bike lanes, planning policies that encourage high-densities, and community-based projects like urban greening. The problem is that implementation is slow, fragmented and increasingly controversial. Investment often flows to affluent places rather than communities in the greatest need of support, and the principal actors in the UK's planning and development systems face various delivery challenges. Planning authorities struggle with institutional inertia and time-limited funding meaning retrofitting is poorly coordinated. Property developers stick to tried and tested business models to reduce risk resulting in a preference for low density, mono-use greenfield development rather than mixed-use projects on brownfield land. Communities face capacity challenges and place adaptation is often contested. If the UK is to meet its net zero targets and achieve a just transition, then urban retrofitting must be prioritised, equitably directed and implemented more effectively. URBAN RETROFIT UK will be led by the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence and coproduced with international, national and local planning, property and community partners, including in five UK core cities - Belfast, Bristol, Cardiff, Glasgow and Sheffield. Its aim is to examine the barriers to urban retrofitting, challenge the prevailing growth-logic of planning and development, and coproduce a conceptual framework plotting the critical points of intervention needed to scale up retrofitting through planning and development systems. The objectives are to: Conduct a global evidence review on urban retrofit informed by international partners and a study tour. Identify and investigate a series of urban retrofit cases in collaboration with local authority partners to understand what is working and pinpoint where implementation gaps could be closed. Work with partners to understand where the spatial inequalities of current urban retrofit practice lie and how the barriers to 'scaling up' effective and equitable practices could be addressed. Establish an international URBAN RETROFIT HUBS network between UK and Global North cities facing comparable place-adaptation challenges and initiate new two-way learning partnerships with Global South cities where the context for urban retrofit is different but opportunities exist to explore lesson-sharing. To maximise knowledge exchange across sectoral boundaries and between places, URBAN RETROFIT UK's findings will be shared throughout the project at jointly delivered events with UK partners and internationally via the URBAN RETROFIT HUBS network. New theoretical perspectives on the UK's planning and development systems and coproduced empirical evidence on urban retrofit will be shared through an international symposium and evidence review, a report, film and magazine articles, and academic outputs including articles and an edited book.

Rufopoly is a participatory learning board game enabling players to undertake a journey through a fictitious rural urban fringe called RUFshire, answering questions and making decisions on development challenges and place-making; those answers then inform each player's vision for RUFshire. The encountered questions are determined by the roll of a die and based on primary data collected for a Relu project (2010-2012) about Managing Environmental Change at the Rural Urban Fringe. Rufopoly has been used extensively in early stages of projects and plans such as the pioneering Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership spatial plan and has been used by government, EU project groups, local authorities, business, community groups, universities and schools. It has exposed audiences to issues associated with the delivery and trade-offs associated with planning and environmental issues at the fringe but crucially without the use of complex jargon. We believe that the full potential and impact of Rufopoly has yet to be fully realised. There are several reasons for this: 1. Rufopoly was developed towards the end of our Relu project as an unplanned output for a conference run by Relu in 2011 on 'Who Should run the Countryside?'. Its success prompted its inclusion as an output. 2. There were insufficient funds for it to be successfully tested and integrated with policy and practice communities to maximise its utility as a learning tool as this was never the original intention of the project. 3. It is currently presented as a one size fits all board game of a hypothetical place. More time is needed to explore the potential of Rufopoly to become a generic platform for stakeholders wishing to develop their own versions of the tool to meet their own needs and to fill a widely recognised gap in the effectiveness of participatory tools for improved decsion making. This knowledge exchange project addresses these deficiencies by drawing together the shared knowledge and previous experiences of designers and users of Rufopoly. This informs a series of interactive workshops in Wales, England and Scotland to identify how this kind of game-format can be enhanced into a more effective and multifunctional tool. This will help extend and embed the impact for a range of policy and practice partners in the form of a Rufopoly Resource Kit. By working collaboratively with end users we can identify how Rufopoly can be reconfigured across different user groups and organisations in tune with their agendas and needs. There are four stages to this project: WP1: Review and learn lessons from previous Rufopoly experiences. This involves (1) an assessment of the actual results and findings from past games that were written up and the results analysed. (2) critical assessments of the strengths and weaknesses of Rufopoly from facilitators and core participants. We will draw priamirly from our UK experiences but are also able to secure insights from the international adaptations of Rufopoly from Nebraska (November 2013) and Sweden (2014). WP2: Conduct a series of interactive workshops with different policy and practice audiences. These workshops will be held in England, Scotland and Wales using members of the research team and other participants. The purpose of these workshops is to (1) share results of WP1; (2) assess how the tool could be reconfigured to address the principla needs and challenges facing participants; and (3) prioritise feasible options for a Rufopoly Resource Kit. WP3: Using WP1 and WP2 outcomes, we will design and trial (across our team) the Rufopoly 'Mk2' resource kit and associated materials/guidance. WP4: Launch the Rufopoly Resource Kit and guidance in a live streamed global workshop event. This would; reveal the basic resource kit as co-designed by the team and enable testers of the resource kit to share their experiences maximising knowledge exchange and its range of potential applications.