Planting Places urban greenspace award winners announced
20/03/2008 17:08WINNERS ANNOUNCED FOR TOP URBAN GREENSPACES IN THE SOUTH WEST 
Sustainability South West, the region’s sustainability champion, together with Natural England, today announced the winners of the South West’s first Planting Places urban greenspace awards.
The Planting Places awards celebrate 10 brilliant examples of urban greenspaces in the region. They showcase greenspaces that are making a host of contributions to the sustainability of our expanding cities and towns, from supporting biodiversity and local food and energy production to improving community well-being and inclusion.
Nominations were received from a large number of amazing greenspaces from across the region, and judges from Arup, Play England, Natural England and the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens named the following projects as winners:
Urban Heaths Project, Bournemouth & Poole
Bristol and Bath Railway Path
St. Werburghs City Farm (Boiling Wells), Bristol
Three Brooks Nature Reserve, Bradley Stoke, S Glos
Belmont Sensory Garden restoration, Exeter
Tuckingmill Valley Park, Camborne, Cornwall
Weston Woods, Weston-super-Mare
Victoria Park Action Group, Bristol
Community Garden at Hayden Rd Allotment, Cheltenham
Diggin' It Organic, Plymouth
Bournemouth and Poole’s Urban Heaths Partnership won its award for providing green lungs and opportunities for informal recreation right on people's doorsteps. The Bournemouth/Poole area is the second largest urban area in the SW, and surrounds and abuts a number of heaths internationally designated for the wildlife that they support. In 2000 the wildlife value of the urban heaths had been declining for many years, partly because of fragmentation and lack of management but mostly because of use and abuse by visitors and local residents. Since 2001 the Urban Heaths Partnership has worked collaboratively with land owners and managers, visitors and local communities to raise awareness of the importance of the heaths and to encourage people to enjoy them in a responsible way. This work has halted, and in some cases reversed the decline in wildlife value on most of the heaths and encouraged local people to get involved in looking after them.
The Bristol and Bath Railway Path, a 13 mile off-road route that carries over 2.4 million walking and cycling trips a year, received its award for providing a green lung in Bristol and offering deprived wards and other communities the opportunity to walk, cycle and play in the space.
St Werburghs City Farm in Bristol secured its Planting Places award for its commitment to working with the community to provide recreational and educational services and resources to improve the lives of local people. The city farm offers training and opportunities to explore seasonality, low-impact living, develop new skills and build confidence.
Three Brooks Nature Reserve lies in the heart of Bradley Stoke. The nature reserve won its award for its 45 hectares of woodlands, grasslands and wetlands, designated a nature reserve in 2004, serving a community of 20,000 residents who previously didn't have access to managed open space. The space provides a wide range of outdoor activities and opportunities for all members of the community including schools who use the site for many activities including wood school, nature trails and orienteering, helping to foster a sense of ownership in future generations.
Exeter’s Belmont Sensory Garden won one of the ten awards for its restoration work carried out over the past two years, the garden now encouraging more positive park use and incorporating a family seating area – the four new picnic benches designed and painted by local residents in colours of the seasons. Ferns, herbs, and flowers, have been planted to provide year round sights, smells and textures and the garden pays tribute to the first garden in England specifically intended for the blind, which opened on the same site in 1939.
Cornwall’s Tuckingmill Valley Park, in Camborne, won an award for its transforming regeneration work – turning a derelict site into a community space and a real source of local pride. Young people were engaged in the future of the park and their wishes converted into reality. The Park perhaps paradoxically brings together a skate park in the head of a conservation site, community graffiti adjacent to cultural Cornish artwork, young offenders working with skilled conservationists and of course a proud community on a site which until four years ago was the most visible derelict land site in west Cornwall.
Weston-super-Mare’s Weston Woods won its award for providing the town with an important visual connection to the natural environment and informal recreation area. Key activities such as the Green Gym and Forest School also take place in the Woods and involve all members of the community, regardless of age or background. North Somerset Council has been working to reverse the decline of the tree stock, and their woodland management has encouraged the growth of the next generation of trees - ensuring that the woodland can continue to provide benefits to the local population. Improvements to access have also been undertaken with the construction of an 'access for all' path which runs through the centre of the woodland and allows visitors with all capabilities the opportunity to enjoy this environment. The woodland has also been awarded the Forestry Stewardship Council certificate confirming the commitment to sustainable woodland management.
Victoria Park, a large 100-year old urban park in Bristol surrounded by high-density terraced housing, won one of the coveted awards for restoring the park and its facilities over the past six years for the benefit of the local community and wildlife following a period of decline.
The Community Garden at Hayden Road Allotments in Cheltenham won its award for providing a community greenspace offering individuals referred from local community mental health teams the opportunity to work as volunteers to build productive plots together with composting, conservation and ornamental areas and develop skills for cultivation of a vast array of plants and produce. Volunteers taste and learn about preparing and cooking freshly grown produce and some groups have also had opportunities to experience and develop skills in landscaping and garden construction projects such as pond building, shed, greenhouse and polytunnel erection, slab making and path-laying. Working on the garden provides disadvantaged individuals with physical, meaningful and purposeful occupation. It helps increase their confidence, self esteem and independence and provides opportunities for social inclusion and community participation.
Plymouth’s Diggin’ It Organic won a Planting Places award for its work transforming 2.5 acres of land into an environment to benefit vulnerable or socially disadvantaged people, helping them to become better integrated within the community and bringing communities together.
Diggin It Organic is a gardening project managed by the Routeways Centre Ltd, a registered charity in Plymouth and currently funded by the Big Lottery Reaching Communities programme, which has transformed 2.5 acres of land supplied by Plymouth City Council. Those involved with Diggin’ It gain skills and confidence, self-esteem and self-sufficiency; some become ready for training or work, enabling them to participate more fully in society. The project is run on organic principles all organic waste is recycled or composted and we have a composting toilet on site. The use of renewable resources will be relied upon wherever it is practically possible, including rainwater harvesting and using green power sources.
The winners were each presented with a specially commissioned piece of artwork, made from Cornish pewter and Forest of Avon oak, for their greenspace at a Planting Places awards ceremony, part of Sustainability South West's annual Local to Regional Sustainability Forum, at the Winter Gardens in Weston-super-Mare last week.
Planting Places is an initiative of charity Sustainability South West, the independent sustainable development Champion Body for the South West of England and has been funded by Defra, Natural England and English Heritage. It is a partnership project to promote and explore the essential role and the potential that urban greenspace networks have in the development of truly sustainable communities - particularly given the anticipated population and housing increase across the South West’s towns and cities.
"Sustainability South West and partners wanted to showcase and celebrate examples of greenspaces - and their champions! - that are really benefiting local communities,” explains Leslie Watson, Director of Sustainability South West, “Greenspaces are an essential part of sustainable living and are becoming ever more important with current challenges like climate change, obesity and 'urban sprawl'. From supporting us to be active and grow more of our own food to safeguarding our wildlife, our vision is for urban greenspaces that help people to live more sustainable lifestyles in the South West's cities and towns."
© 2007 Sustainability South West - UK registered charity, no. 1106125 - info@sustainabilitysouthwest.org.uk.