Learning and Action Alliance framework to facilitate stakeholder collaboration and social learning in urban flood risk management

Flood and water management governance may be enhanced through partnership working, intra- and cross-organisational collaborations, and wide stakeholder participation. Nonetheless, barriers associated with ineffective communication, fragmented responsibilities and ‘siloed thinking’ restrict open dialogue and discussion. The Learning and Action Alliance (LAA) framework may help overcome these barriers by enabling effective engagement through social learning, and facilitating targeted actions needed to deliver innovative solutions to environmental problems. By increasing the adaptive capacity of decision-makers and participants, social learning through LAAs may lead to concerted action and sustained processes of behavioural change. In this paper, we evaluate the LAA framework as a catalyst for change that supports collaborative working and facilitates transition to more sustainable flood risk management. We use a case study in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, to demonstrate how the LAA framework brought together disparate City stakeholders to co-produce new knowledge, negotiate innovative actions and, ultimately, work towards implementing a new vision for sustainable urban flood risk management. The shared vision of Newcastle as a ‘Blue-Green City’ that emerged is founded on a strong platform for social learning which increased organisations’ and individuals’ capacities to manage differences in perspectives and behaviours, reframe knowledge, and make collective decisions based on negotiation and conflict resolution. Broad recommendations based on lessons learned from the Newcastle LAA are presented to aid other cities and regions in establishing and running social learning platforms

The Rise of the Resilient Local Authority?

The term resilience is increasingly being utilised within the study of public policy to depict how individuals, communities and organisations can adapt, cope, and ‘bounce back’ when faced with external shocks such as climate change, economic recession and cuts in public expenditure. In focussing on the local dimensions of the resilience debate, this article argues that the term can provide useful insights into how the challenges facing local authorities in the UK can be reformulated and reinterpreted. The article also distinguishes between resilience as ‘recovery’ and resilience as ‘transformation’, with the latter's focus on ‘bouncing forward’ from external shocks seen as offering a more radical framework within which the opportunities for local innovation and creativity can be assessed and explained. While also acknowledging some of the weaknesses of the resilience debate, the dangers of conceptual ‘stretching’, and the extent of local vulnerabilities, the article highlights a range of examples where local authorities – and crucially, local communities – have enhanced their adaptive capacity, within existing powers and responsibilities. From this viewpoint, some of the barriers to the development of resilient local government are not insurmountable, and can be overcome by ‘digging deep’ to draw upon existing resources and capabilities, promoting a strategic approach to risk, exhibiting greater ambition and imagination, and creating space for local communities to develop their own resilience

Gateshead no. 1 (Blaydon) enterprise zone scheme: draft modifications

SIGLELD:f83/4773 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Development land strategy

SIGLELD:f83/3043 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Enterprise zones in Gateshead The first three years

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:OP/LG-5157 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Metro Centre information note

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:OP/LG-5880 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Gateshead no. 3 (Team Valley south) enterprise zone scheme Draft modifications

SIGLELD:f83/2300 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Panayiotis Kalorkoti National Garden Festival commission 1990

Catalogue of exhibitions at the National Garden Festival, Gateshead 18 May - 20 Oct 1990 and Gateshead Library Gallery 5-30 Nov 1990SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:Vq91/01501(Panayiotis) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo