Liverpool has been selected to receive funding from a European-wide climate grant to support greening schemes aimed at complementing new active travel routes. This comes as part of the Sustainable Cities Mobility Challenge and has been awarded as part of a wider initiative to promote initiatives that are aligned with Europe’s climate agenda. The projects will be delivered this summer and have all been created to help Liverpool move towards more people-centred, cleaner and greener transport. The £3.5m programme is being funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 initiative.
Liverpool was one of five cities chosen from a list of 100. City councils, municipalities, and local authorities in EU member states, United Kingdom, Horizon Europe associated countries, and Switzerland were invited to submit initiatives that align with Europe’s climate agenda. EIT Climate-KIC evaluated entries using criteria based on potential for environmental and social impact, replicability, and learning. Project-specific grants will also be awarded to Utrecht (Netherlands), Santa Coloma de Gramenet, and Cornellà de Llobregat (Spain), and Lisbon (Portugal).
Liverpool’s green initiatives include four different schemes around the center’s fringe. These are an extension of Liverpool City Council’s URBAN GreenUP program to transform the city into one that can better use green and blue spaces. The city council has worked with the University of Liverpool and the Mersey Forest to explore how different green and blue spaces can be retrofitted into an urban environment. These projects will also provide environmental, social, and economic benefits, including Liverpool’s first urban city raingarden, vertical green walls, water retention ponds, a pollinator roof, and trees that provide sustainable urban drainage.
Andy Mollon, Director of Transportation and Highways at Liverpool City Council, said that the city council was pleased to be part of the Sustainable Cities Mobility Challenge and thanked EIT Climate-KIC and FedEx Express Europe for their support. Liverpool is committed to creating cleaner, greener, and more people-centred transport options, and they are investing millions of pounds to improve active travel networks across the city to achieve exactly that. They also hope to innovate highways to encourage biodiversity and implement greener methods in highways construction.
Kirsten Dunlop, CEO of EIT Climate-KIC, stated that through the Sustainable Cities Mobility Challenge, they are supporting cities to achieve their climate ambitions. The pilot initiatives serve as testbeds to catalyze transformative change where innovation, experimentation, and collaboration converge at the heart of communities. They were thrilled to partner with the selected cities
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