Work has started to create a rainscape wetland area in Wild Park.
Archaeologists moved into the site this week to begin preparatory work before the main groundwork starts in August.
Rainscapes (also known as Sustainable Drainage Systems or SuDs) are specially designed, engineered and landscaped solutions to manage surface water, reduce flood risk, improve water quality and provide better biodiversity and community benefits.
Fencing has been erected around the site to allow the archaeologists to carry out their work. Once the investigation has been completed, work will start to create the rainscape.
The Wild Park Rainscape will be designed around four shallow planted basins that can hold water during heavy rainfall, helping to reduce pollution and improve the area for people and nature.
The linked basins will be in the grassed area between the park entrance and the end of the turning circle, next to the road.
Water will be conveyed under the entrance road through a short channel to the basins, which will be planted as wildlife friendly shallow wetlands, replenishing the aquifer and helping the balance of water resources essential for nature and our city’s water supply.
The plans include removing three trees, which will be replaced by 24 new parkland trees, 8 orchard trees and areas of hazel coppice, increasing the park’s biodiversity.
Work will also include upgrading the pond next to The Keep, linking it to the wetland area in the park. New pathways, seating, bins and signage will also be installed.
During the construction phase, some paths may be temporarily closed around the entrance, swale and rainscape areas. However, the main part of the park will remain accessible, and alternative routes will be clearly marked.
A Construction Environmental Management Plan is in place to help minimise disturbance to people and nature during this period.
Work is expected to be completed by the autumn.
Andy Westwood, head of transport projects and engineering, said: “The Wild Park Rainscape is a pioneer project in our city, benefiting people, water and nature and showcasing how we can adapt to the impacts of climate change: warmer, wetter winters, hotter, drier summers and increasingly intense storms.
“By next summer, the wetland area will have blossomed into a beautiful and sustainable space that enhances wildlife, improves water quality, and demonstrates better ways of managing water more sustainably in the environment.
“With local support, we hope the Wild Park Rainscape will become a local landmark and testament to environmental stewardship and lead the way for similar projects in the city.”
This is a great environment project and use of unused land. Just need the park to be stopped used as a car park for the amex football then people would be able to enjoy it.
I agree, perhaps simple signs erected on site not permitting parking on the grass with active enforcement like they have put on the Avenue greens down the way, it would pro-actively dissuade football parking? And if further improvements were made to the Cafe, football area that is well used at weekends and the back end of Wild Park, a small parking fee which went back into maintenance like at Stanmer might also help.
Stagnant pond that’ll be full of rubbish or dried up and abandoned within a few years . ..
As with all council projects it will be started with good intentions, run over budget and delivered late. It will then be ticked off as finished and left never to be thought of again.
Building something is only half the job; it has to be maintained.
Please explain how this vanity project is worth £10,776,466.00 of hardworking taxpayer’s money when local residents are being forced to resort to food banks! Election alert! Labour have got the wrong priorities!
https://www.contractsfinder.service.gov.uk/notice/918dab53-1f43-4eb7-96ab-f054cea5192e?origin=SearchResults&p=3
They did something like this at the top of Carden Avenue. It just looks like a f##king mess
And Norton Road up from Hove Town Hall. That looks like a f##king mess too.
Simple reply is – its NOT worth it…
That’s the contract value, not the price tag. https://oneflow.com/blog/contract-value/
Further, the feasibility study identifies very different costs for the work, and the overall contract includes a lot more general improvements to the area. https://democracy.brighton-hove.gov.uk/documents/s148287/SuDS%20Feasibility%20Report%20for%20Wild%20Park%20Brighton%20authored%20by%20Robert%20Bray%20Associates%2008.06.18.pdf
As ever, Barry, you’ve gone off half-cocked here.
If it isn’t my old mate Benjy boy. I’d recognise those council apologist tones anywhere.
This is a TOTAL WASTE of public money when there’s people in this city relying on food banks. End of.
Fact check. Funding is coming from highways England, The environment agency, southern water, south down national parks as well as the council.
Which still means US….. This isn’t magic-tree cash its our cash being respent by other organisation and companies…
If Southern water have money to burn they should spend it on sorting out the sewage going into the sea, not faffing about with overgrown school projects which no one asked for. Rostrum is right. All public money is our money, whatever the source.
I think it’s pretty well known by now that excessive rainfall and flooding cause sewage to end up overflowing into the sea and our waterways – so by helping to fund this project (one of the aims of which is to tackle flooding), it seems to me that is exactly what Southern Water are doing.
If it’s not bad enough that we have to live with the old Effers who have turbo changed fossil fuel extraction for their own greed and convenience for the past 50 years, we now have this selfsame old Effers trying to stamp on every attempt to make good some of the damage they have caused.
Infuriating and sickening.
Show us some actual science proving this sort of overpiced idealistic BS does a single meaningful thing to save the planet. Bet you can’t. Meanwhile the factories out east carry on buiding and belching with complete impunity while those of us in the West are taxed to death for the sake of it.