Newcastle tops sustainable cities league
Newcastle-upon-Tyne has been crowned Britain’s most sustainable city – the first time anywhere in the north of England has broken into the top three of the annual index.
Nudging previous winners Bristol and Brighton into second and third place respectively, it tops the environmental table and comes fourth for both quality of life and future-proofing.
Forum for the Future’s annual Sustainable cities index tracks progress on sustainability in Britain’s 20 largest cities - highlighting environmental performance, quality of life and readiness for future challenges.
Newcastle rose from fourth place last year – thanks in part to its sustainable community strategy for 2008-2011, which stipulated that the city’s economic growth would not be achieved ‘at the expense of the environment’.
Margaret Eaton, chair of the Local Government Association, said: ‘Forum for the Future’s Sustainable cities index has driven real change by inspiring cities to adopt more ambitious sustainability strategies and by providing a framework against which they can benchmark their efforts.’
The forum measures 13 indicators, chosen to reflect areas in which local authorities have the power to enhance the sustainability of their city.
Bristol tops the quality of life table and ranks third on future-proofing. It has the highest scores for recycling and household waste collections, and comes second on employment and transport.
Hull is a non-mover at the bottom spot but the biggest change is Plymouth which dropped outside the top ten from third in 2008. Cardiff slipped back five spaces and Edinburgh and Glasgow have both dropped one spot each.
However, Leeds boosted its rating by seven and, while Manchester and Birmingham are trailing near the end of the index, the report singled out their recently launched ‘noteworthy sustainability initiatives’.
Leicester has made it into the top five – a strong rise from eighth last year – and tops the future-proofing table, and London moved up to fifth place, driven by strong employment, transport and health scores.
The top 20 overall city rankings are:
1 Newcastle
2 Bristol
3 Brighton and Hove
4 Leicester
5 London
6 Leeds
7 Edinburgh
8 Nottingham
9 Sheffield
10 Cardiff
11 Coventry
12 Plymouth
13 Sunderland
14 Manchester
15 Liverpool
16 Bradford
17 Birmingham
18 Wolverhampton
19 Glasgow
20 Hull
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