Heath Park is to feature at 7th Healthy City Design 2023 International Congress & Exhibition in Liverpool from October 16-17.
The event, which is being staged outside London for the first time, will be held at the Royal College of Physicians in Liverpool with presentations being streamed to a global audience.
The Heath Park project was selected from 110 international submissions in a competitive evaluation process with organisers inviting SOG boss John Lewis MBE DL, the inspiration behind Heath Park, to give a presentation on the opening day.
SOG Group has submitted a planning application to Halton Borough Council in the next step of their ground-breaking proposals to transform The Heath Business and Technical Park at Runcorn into ‘Heath Park’, a 21st century version of Port Sunlight’.
Mr Lewis says: “I’m delighted we have been invited to give a presentation at the high-profile Healthy City Design 2023 International Congress. It provides us with another excellent platform to promote Heath Park to a global audience as we continue engagement with the international investment community to enable our vision to be turned into reality.”
Heath Park evolved from a global competition challenging architects, designers, planners and forward thinkers to create a sustainable futuristic environment, powered by renewable energy, where people can live, work and play.
The result is a visionary scheme to meet the challenges of Climate Change which addresses the predicted trends for future living including employment, housing, leisure, community, transport and energy consumption. The masterplan has taken three years of meticulous research by a dedicated team of expert consultants who have worked with leading academics from Lancaster and Liverpool Universities to produce, with validation, a revolutionary proposition to put before the planners.
Heath Park has been adopted as a Beacon Project by Liverpool City Region Mayor Steve Rotheram and is validated by the UK Government. It is one of 35 ethical projects (only 2 from the North-West and Wales) that feature in the Department for International Trade’s Global Investment Atlas which aims to attract global investors.
A key element of Heath Park are proposals by SOG to build a ground-breaking ‘Field of the Future’ vertical farm powered by hydrogen or other renewable energy sources as a model that can put the UK at the forefront of ‘Net Zero’ farming technology. A world-first pilot study at The Heath conducted by Liverpool’s Farm Urban operation, SOG’s vertical farming advisors, demonstrated that it is possible to grow ‘Net Zero’ produce. The findings can put the UK at the forefront of the world’s challenge to grow carbon free food.
Farm Urban’s co-founder Dr Paul Myers, one of the UK’s leading authorities of vertical farming, will also presenting at HCD 2023 in a session focused on ‘Greening and feeding the city’.
For more information and to view the full programme for HCD 2023 go to: www.healthycitydesign.global
* Heath Park’s ethos is modelled on ‘Port Sunlight’, the Victorian village built by industrialist Viscount Leverhulme in the 1800s. Reacting to appalling living conditions at the time, Lord Leverhulme’s inspiring idea created houses and community facilities in a healthy environment for workers of his soap factory
About Healthy City Design 2023
The Healthy City Design 2023 (HCD 2023) International Congress & Exhibition is a global forum for the exchange of knowledge on the research, policy and practice of designing healthy and sustainable cities and communities. Each day will open and close with keynote plenary sessions. The opening day will focus on population health; Design across the life course; Smart and inclusive cities and mobility; work and workplace. Day two will cover Urban design, planning and public realm; planetary health; Health-creating communities; Social value and resilience. As well as oral presentations and discussions, the event will host a Video and Poster Gallery of innovative research and projects alongside a knowledge-focused exhibition of design solutions for cities, communities and workplaces. All the sessions will be streamed virtually for delegates unable to attend in person.