48. Riverside Park
Themes: Community engagement and participation; Promoting appropriate and sympathetic land management; Improving water quality and water quantity
Objectives:
- Improve local knowledge and understanding of the river and the issues facing it
- Improve existing wildlife corridors
- Increase the amount and quality of habitat
- Reduce pollution through physical improvements around the river
Project description
Riverside Park is a linear park alongside the A6 New Bedford Road from Kingsland Avenue to Stockingstone Road and has a well-used path running through it.
At the southern end of the park is Bide-a-While a garden that included traditional allotment plots, an orchard and landscaped garden. Many original features have been lost although into 2009 areas were re-developed including the raised planting area and tending to the orchard and re-landscaping the lawns. More recently part of the allotment area was refurbished for community use (see project 20) and volunteers are continuing to tend and expand on the orchard.
The project aims to undertake channel restoration and tree works to achieve the optimum shade and light levels into the water. River work may include bank re-profiling, the creation of a low-flow channel to allow fish, invertebrates and small mammal passage and potentially the creation of new wetland areas. More widely. issues of the Bide a While garden boundary planting falling into the river and areas of garden encroachment onto the open space aim to be addressed. The garden encroachment, as well as losing open space and being unsightly is also casing issues during storms when material is washed into the river.