New nature-rich public space for Hereford

Hereford will get a new nature-rich public space from this spring, which will also enable affordable housing to be built alongside.

Work is underway to create a flood alleviation pond at what was the northernmost of Merton Meadow’s car parks, next to the flood-prone Widemarsh brook.

And while it still looks essentially like a car park for now, by March it will have been hollowed out to a range of depths, then planted up with 50 trees and aquatic plants.

“There will be a lot of landscaping and wildlife planting around the perimeter,” the council’s head of housing development Steve Holland said.

“There will deeper areas for fish to over-winter, with a boardwalk around it and a platform area with boards for education purposes .Eventually we will put bird hides in as it matures and grows.”

He explained that water from the brook will “spill into” the new area as levels rise, then spill back out to the east, as part of wider efforts to manage levels in the area, funded by £2 million from the Government.

“It’s designed to deal with a one-in-a-hundred-year event, plus 35 per cent,” Mr Holland assured.

And while it will initially be looked after by the council, a management company funded by new residents “will look after it longer-term”.

Ben Shakespeare, site manager for contractors Speller Metcalfe, said it would hand over the project, “essentially a big pond”, to the council in just over two months’ time.

“It will be glorious for a dog-walker,” he said.

The council’s Cabinet member for economy and growth Coun Graham Biggs said the council “was happy to have put the government grant to good use, rather than handing it back, which was the danger”.

“We are getting a really exciting development that means more affordable homes for the county,” he said.

Mr Holland confirmed that a neighbouring pocket of currently unused land immediately to the east, where the site office currently stands, will be the first to be redeveloped as a consequence, with 15 affordable units planned.

A planning application for this is expected shortly.