Tweet here

Green Actions

Placing nature and community at the heart of Woodhurst Park

How green infrastructure underpins Berkeley’s Woodhurst Park development in Berkshire.

Two photographs, the first of an established oak tree in front of a new house. The second of a pond surrounded by young trees.

Green infrastructure plays an important role in our everyday lives; it provides places for people to enjoy, provides resilience to climate change and can help to improve air quality.


At Woodhurst Park in Berkshire, the first thing Berkeley did was create 65 acres of beautiful parkland and natural habitats, all stitched together by a network of walking routes and cycle paths. They include a village green, a village pond, an orchard, a nature trail, and areas sown with meadow and wildflower grassland mix, which is great for supporting a myriad of insects, from bees and beetles to grasshoppers and butterflies, which in turn support many small animals and birds. This open space came alongside a new primary school, children’s play space, and community gardens.

 

As residents began moving in, Berkeley wanted to connect them to each other and the green infrastructure on their doorstep. Signage and notice boards have been installed around the park landscape to guide local walkers and highlight important local species and plants, and pupils from the new primary school have taken part in tree planting sessions.

 

Berkeley has also teamed up with the Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust (BBOWT) to host family days in the park. During these days, children can learn how to make their own bee hotels, enjoy intrepid ‘bug hunts’, and everyone can mix, meet and learn more about how they can support biodiversity in their local environment, for example through cultivating nature-friendly plants in gardens, balconies or window boxes.

Two photographs, the first showing a Wildlife trust marquee with people within on green space within the development and the second showing a guide from the Woodland Trust talking to a group.

Berkeley hope that events like these will encourage the local community to connect with each other and actively use the nature which is integrated within their surroundings. We also hope that it will inspire them to take simple steps to value and support biodiversity.

Berkeley Group logo

If you’d like us to use feature your green action please tell us

 

  1. What you did, or intend to do, and when?
  2. Which theme, or themes, it delivers against?
  3. Who and how many people it involves?
  4. That you are happy for us to store, and potentially use, the information.

 

Please send details, including any photographs and logos we can use, to [email protected]

In collaboration with