Making cities more sustainable is a top priority – for national governments, for cities and for the people who live, work and visit urban areas. The past decade has seen a concerted UK effort to develop, apply and assess sustainability solutions for the present and near future; however, little has been done to test urban regeneration solutions beyond that. This paper describes a methodology that has developed future scenarios for the year 2050 against which to test the robustness of current engineering solutions, thereby providing unique insights into the potential impacts of present urban planning and design decisions, and thus financial investments. If a proposed solution delivers a positive legacy, regardless of the future against which it is tested, then it can be adopted with confidence. When there are very different outcomes depending on the future, the solution can either be modified to create an improved outcome regardless of the future or implemented in the knowledge of the likely impacts if the future develops in different ways. The urban futures methodology has been applied to the Lancaster Luneside East regeneration site, for which contextual information is described along with a justification for its use as a case study to trial the methodology.

A 6·6 ha (66 000 m²) regeneration site, commonly referred to as Luneside East, is to be turned from a run down, economically under-achieving area of Lancaster, UK, into a new, distinctive, vibrant, sustainable quarter of the city. As a result several aspects of water planning for 350 new homes and 8000 m² of workspace needed to be considered before any infrastructure investment was undertaken. This included assessment of the future capacity requirements (i.e. inflows and outflows) for water infrastructure (i.e. mains water supply, wastewater disposal, rainwater storage and stormwater disposal) much of which will be located underground. This paper looks at the implications of various water management strategies on the Luneside East site (e.g. water-efficient appliances, greywater recycling and rainwater harvesting) in line with current policy measures that focus on technology changes alone (e.g. the code for sustainable homes). Based on these findings this paper outlines some basic implications for technological resilience discussed in the context of four ‘world views’ – that is, the urban futures scenarios considered in this special issue. Conclusions are drawn as to how far this can take engineers, planners and developers in understanding and planning for resilient water infrastructure within a development like Luneside East.

One of the main objectives currently pursued in planning sustainable urban environments is the reduction of energy consumption. Strategies for energy and the built environment are given in UK planning policies. Yet the application of such strategies at a local scale requires careful contextual analysis, since local conditions may inhibit, or enhance, benefits that these strategies intend to deliver. More importantly, the permanence of such benefits over time can be disrupted if local conditions are undermined by unpredicted future events. This paper analyses the application of three energy conservation strategies recommended in planning guidance developed by Lancaster City Council for a flagship regeneration project. The strategies are energy-efficient building envelopes, the utilisation of passive solar design principles and the generation of renewable energy. Results from the analysis suggest that each one of these solutions could be vulnerable to unpredicted future events and that conditions to improve their resilience need to be built in today. The appraisal elicits interdependencies between solutions for energy efficiency and other sustainability solutions such as the quality of the public realm, the local microclimate, air quality and more. The discussion of these links leads to a series of recommendations designed to inform planning guidance.

Deployable output (source availability) from water resources in north west England is predicted to decrease over the next 25 years. Alternative supply management strategies are planned to help avoid a deficit in the supply–demand balance within the region but have yet to be considered in detail. This paper assesses the contribution of such an alternative supply strategy at local level on the water resource supply–demand balance at regional level based on a proposed urban regeneration site in north west England. Various water conservation and reuse measures are investigated considering local and regional conditions and constraints. Four future scenarios are presented and used to describe how the future might be (rather than how it will be), to allow an assessment to be made of how current ‘sustainable solutions’ might cope whatever the future holds. The analysis determines the solution contributions under each future and indicates that some strategies will deliver their full intended benefits under scenarios least expected but most needed. It is recommended that to help reduce the regional supply–demand deficit and maximise system resilience to future change, a wide range of water demand management measures should be incorporated on this and other sites.