Category Archives: Events

Faith and Place network events

Planning for Religious Diversity in Wales

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Network leaders Richard Gale and Andrew Rogers have been leading a series of Faith and Place Dialogues in the Welsh context, with support from RTPI Cymru and Planning Aid Wales. The background to these events is that religious diversity has been increased substantially in Wales in recent decades, leading to a growing need among some groups for designated spaces in which to congregate and worship. Although crude, data from recent censuses give some indication of the scale of this change. For example, in the decade between the 2001 and 2011 Censuses, all non-Christian religious groups grew in Wales, with Buddhists increasing by 69 percent (from 5,407 to 9,117), Hindus by 92 percent (from 5,439 to 10,434), Muslims by 111 percent (from 21,739 to 45,950), Sikhs by 47 percent (from 2,015 to 2,962) and ‘Other non-Christian’ groups by 84 percent (from 6,909 to 12,705). In addition, while the Christian population fell overall by 16 percent (from 2.09 million to 1.8 million), this masks significant growth in the presence of Black Christian groups, with African Caribbean Christians growing by 39 percent (from 1,810 to 2,513) and African Christians growing by 346 percent (from 1,662 to 7,406). Currently, non-Christian faith groups make up 2.7 percent of the Welsh population, an increase from 1.5 percent in 2001.

These trends are likely to continue for some while into the future, and present important challenges for planners. As such there is a growing need to explore how relationships between planners and faith groups play out in the Welsh context. Funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), these events are drawing together Welsh Government officers, local government planners, faith group representatives, interfaith organisations and academics. The events seek to promote knowledge exchange, networking and ongoing dialogue between key stakeholders and to embed the Welsh version of the FPN Policy Briefing, ‘Faith Groups and the Planning System’.

Three events are taking place in total, in Cardiff, Newport and Swansea, which between them accounted for 64 percent of the overall growth in the non-Christian religious presence in Wales between 2001 and 2011. The final event takes place in Cardiff on Thursday 24th January.  A final report on the project will be submitted to event participants and the Welsh Government in Spring 2019.

Planning for Religious Diversity in Wales

Events, Faith and Place network, Places of worship, Planning, Policy, ,

Dr Richard Gale, network co-leader, has recently been awarded impact funds by the ESRC for a project entitled “Planning for Religious Diversity in Wales: Towards a Faith and Place Knowledge Exchange Network”. The project will run three public engagement events called Faith and Place dialogues in Cardiff, Newport and Swansea during 2018. These events will be draw on the Faith and Place network policy briefing recommendations (see Downloads), to promote networking, knowlege exchange and an ongoing dialogue between Welsh Government, local authority planners and faith group representatives around the faith, place and planning nexus. The project is partnered by RTPI Cymru and Planning Aid Wales.

Policy Briefing launch, 15th October, House of Commons

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Houses_of_Parliament_(London)

After a long year of deliberations, the AHRC Faith and Place network has produced a policy briefing containing 15 recommendations for faith groups and planners and other interested parties.

The policy briefing will be launched at the House of Commons on Thursday 15th October, 5-7pm, sponsored by Rt Hon Stephen Timms MP, the labour party faith envoy. The launch takes place in the Jubilee room to an invited audience of planners, faith group leaders, MPs, local government representatives, academics and civil society organisations.

The policy briefing addresses five policy areas emerging from the network, namely Understanding One Another, Community, Equality & Diversity, Sharing Good Practice and the Planning Framework.

For further details, click here.

(Picture credit: Amir Rabbani, Wikimedia commons)

 

 

Faith and Place Futures symposium next week

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Grove_House,_Roehampton_-_Diliff

The third Faith and Place network meeting takes place next week, Tuesday 30th June to Wednesday 1st July at Grove House, University of Roehampton, SW London. Entitled “Futures”, the symposium aims to finalise a policy briefing addressing critical issues around faith, place and planning for minority faith groups. This will be explored through a panel on religious spatial practices, a set of creative case studies and three keynotes. Videos of the symposium will be available on this website later in the summer. The policy briefing will then be released in the early Autumn.

Critical Themes for Explorations event

Events, Faith and Place network, Heritage, Migration, New Black Majority Churches, Places of worship, Planning, Report, Theology of place, Transnationalism

Following on from the first network event, Perspectives, and the subsequent report (see previous post), Andrew and Richard have identified four critical themes to be explored in more depth at the upcoming Explorations event on the 19th March 2015 in Birmingham. These themes are set out below or you can download them here. Continue reading Critical Themes for Explorations event →

Perspectives report

Events, Faith and Place network, Heritage, Places of worship, Planning, Report, Social cohesion

The Faith and Place network met for the first time at The Royal Foundation of St Katharine on 4th December 2014. The report below summarises the key themes and discussions of the day.

1.             Introduction

1.1          The purpose of the first event of the Faith and Place Network was to explore, from a diversity of perspectives, the interrelations between faith, place and the politics of planning. Above all, it placed emphasis on exploring accounts from faith community representatives, planners and policy professionals, to begin teasing out the hidden histories and current realities surrounding the faith, place and planning nexus. This was a significant first step towards achieving the network goals, both to bring together participants from a range of faith, planning and professional backgrounds and to produce policy relevant guidance on religious space and planning practice.

1.2          This report attempts to capture and synthesise the rich variety of themes that were explored throughout the presentations and discussions that made up the Perspectives event, and in turn, to provide network participants with a platform on which to build in the subsequent network events. The various sections below are our attempt to organise the key ideas articulated by network members, according to the over-arching topics and themes that emerged throughout the day. Continue reading Perspectives report →

First network event – Perspectives

Events, Faith and Place network

Thursday 4th December 2014 saw 26 delegates attend the inaugural meeting of the Faith and Place network at the Royal Foundation of Saint Katharine in East London.

Many thanks to all the delegates from a wide variety of professional and academic backgrounds who made it such a stimulating day. Particular thanks are due to our 14 speakers who provided a rich and diverse set of Perspectives on faith, place and planning: Alastair Cutting, Simon Bevan, Nairita Chakraborty, Shahed Saleem, Richard Blyth, Mustafa Field, Mary Anderson, Olatunji Adebayo, Robert Wickham, Synthia Griffin, R David Muir, Anne Kubai, Felix Asare and Marcel Maussen.

Videos of the talks will be available on this website very soon.