Back in late 2020, the Trust was at the forefront of calls for wildlife-rich greenspace to be a key focus for the redevelopment – publicly urging the council to create a landmark natural greenspace. The Trust believed that a nature first approach would help the City stand out from the crowd as towns and cities across the UK sought to regenerate following the impacts of covid and decline of the High Street due to online shopping. It also felt it would be an important step towards providing those living close to the City Centre with more equitable access to nature.

The Trust’s vision for the Broadmarsh area was brought to life by Influence Landscape Architects and generated significant media coverage in the UK and overseas. Following the City’s ‘Big Conversation’ consultation, representatives from the Trust were invited to share their ideas with the team from Heatherwick Studio – appointed by the Council to draw up proposals based on the consultation.

Speaking on behalf of the Trust, Chief Executive Paul Wilkinson said: “Once it became clear that there was an opportunity to transform the Broadmarsh area, we were focussed on highlighting our vision and encouraging everyone involved to raise their ambitions about what could be achieved.  One of our early ideas was to explore whether wetland could form part of the plans – reflecting the importance of wetland habitats and that the area was originally a marsh. It was clear from the ‘Big Conversation’ that a nature first approach had significant public support and we had great response from the team at Heatherwick Studio.”

To help turn its vision into reality and to ensure that wildlife habitats would be sustainable and robust the Trust suggested that its specialist ecological consultancy EMEC be engaged to offer their technical advice during the design phase.

Speaking following the latest announcement Paul added:

“It is so exciting that things are now really moving forward. The appointment of the team to drive forward the Master Plan and to physically deliver the Green Heart are key staging posts in turning our nature first vision into a reality. There has been a lot of work by a lot of people to get to this stage and we are delighted to have played a leading role. We look forward to seeing the Green Heart take shape over the next 12 months and to continuing to play a role in ensuring that nature and wildlife-rich green space remain key elements of future phases of the redevelopment”.