March 11-16, 2012

In March 2012 the Wuhan Planning and Design Institute hosted an Urban Planning Advisory Team (UPAT) workshop in order to define development strategies and sustainable concepts for the Wuhan East Lake Scenic Area. The UPAT Team of eight ISOCARP members worked closely with planners and and executives of the Wuhan Planning and Design Institute, the Wuhan Land Resources and Planning Bureau and the East Lake Management Office.The UPAT Team, lead by Ric Stephens (USA), Chris Gossop (UK) and Vice President Martin Dubbeling (Netherlands), together with Jim Colman (Australia), Stefan Rau (Phillipines/Germany) and the three Young Planning Professionals Sebastien Goethals (China/Belgium), Mei Yun (China) and Yu Yang (China/USA) visited the East Lake Scenic Area in the period 11-16 March 2012 for an intensive week of fruitful discussions and hard work.The UPAT report brings together the work of the eight planning professionals who took part in the UPAT Workshop. It takes into account the feedback the team has obtained from representatives of the WPDI and the other Wuhan organizations to three presentations, the first of these being on 16 March in Wuhan, the second taking place on 10 April through the medium of a teleconference, and the third on 27 June. The UPAT Report seeks to integrate a tourism development of the highest quality with the conservation and enhancement of the East Lake’s beautiful natural environment.The Wuhan UPAT Team is very grateful to the WPDI for their hospitality in providing excellent accommodation for the UPAT’s working week in Wuhan, for the various visits that were organized for the team, for the documentation which provided the bedrock for the team’s work, and for the discussions and expert feedback. The team came back from Wuhan with a great appreciation of what has been achieved in the City and the serious hope that their deliberations will be of some assistance to the authorities in forging an exemplary future path for the East Lake Scenic Area.

For both the ISOCARP Wuhan UPAT Team and the Wuhan Planning and Design Institute, the quality of the report was very important.

The bilingual (English-Chinese) and hypertexted Wuhan UPAT Report Wuhan for the East Lake Scenic Area is available for download here.

For information and for your suggestions about the ISOCARP programme, please contact Vice President Martin Dubbeling at dubbeling@isocarp.org.