Gorton climate resilient (sponge) park

Green & blue

20 Apr

West Gorton, an inner-city suburb located 3 kilometres to the south east of Manchester city centre, is home to Manchester’s first purpose-built climate resilience park.

Opening in 2020, the park sits in a broader £100m Manchester City Council led regeneration scheme.

A previously thriving industrial area, it fell in to decline in the second half of the 20th century.

It was regenerated from 2014, involving the demolition of 440 homes and the construction of 536 new ones, and the development of a new health centre, a pharmacy, and a community centre.

The redeveloped park is around the size of three football pitches. It incorporates subtle nature-based and civil engineering design features and that ‘drink’ water, improving its quality and reducing excess water entering local sewers, a key cause of flooding during periods of intense rainfall.

The park derives co-benefits by reducing the urban health island effect and providing shade for local residents. It enhances bio-diversity through a mix of native and ornamental flowering plants and trees, with plants for pollinators and providing a food source for birds, insect hotels and bird and bat boxes. The park was designed to incorporate numerous mature trees that were already on site. The park additionally contributes to local health and social well-being, providing a free, safe and aesthetically pleasing space for local people to use throughout the year.

The park was planned to become a focal point for the community with the design undergoing a public consultation led by the Guinness Partnership and Groundwork Greater Manchester.

The part is multi-functional, extending across three connected areas

- A woodland area with swales, but also including a play space, basketball court, and a climbing frame.
- A meadow area including a rain garden, species-rich meadow planting, fruit trees and picnic areas.
- And a community plaza and garden, including a permeable social and event space for pop-up markets and community events, a community growing area and a bio-retention tree pit.

A climate resilient park

The park would, said the past Lead Member for Environment Transport and Planning, Councillor Angeliki Stogia, be “Not just a fun place to play, and relax, but a working network of subtle interventions that will reduce flooding and improve biodiversity over the coming years.”

The park required significant technical expertise to design and build, particularly water engineering and landscape design expertise. It cost £1.2 million, funded through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (specifically the GrowGreen initiative).

The park is monitored by researchers from the University of Manchester, led by Professor James Rothwell, to assess its climate resilience performance alongside multiple environmental, social and economic co-benefits. The initial evaluation will be published in 2022 with further sensor-based monitoring taking place until 2027.

The designers acknowledge that the park posed design and construction challenges. This is the first new park the city has developed in many years. In both concept and design, it is quite different to any other park the Council is responsible for. Through an agreement with Council sub-contractors, the park is subject to enhanced maintenance for the first three years of existence in order to maintain its climate resilience functionality.