A collaborative project by Green Action Trust, NatureScot, Falkirk Council and the Rose Garden Action Group in Grangemouth has restored Zetland Park’s Rose Garden, while delivering an exemplar of nature-based solutions to problems like flooding.
Delivered with funding from the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund (NRF), which is managed by NatureScot, this project demonstrates the potential of high quality blue-green infrastructure, showing that functional (and multifunctional) spaces can also be attractive and welcoming places. This ties into a key theme within the Central Scotland Green Network (CSGN), and so creating exemplar raingarden sites is an important step for the Trust and partners to demonstrate the positive impacts of the CSGN.
The NRF funding for the raingarden features was provided to showcase the benefits that nature-based solutions can deliver for people and nature in towns and cities. These include:
- Adaptation to climate change such as flood and drought resilience
- Creation of beauty, opportunities for recreation and contact with nature such as water, wildlife and vegetation, creating positive effects on quality of life and mental health
- Biodiversity benefits such as water quality, habitat creation and provision of food sources for pollinators, invertebrates, birds, amphibians, and mammals
- Educational value, revealing natural processes through the design and provision of on-site interpretation
In this project, the raingarden elements were carefully integrated with the Rose Garden and other design features, showing that they functioned together, rather than the raingarden simply being a drainage pond at the side of the site. This was key to show that nature-based solutions can be more than unimaginative basins hidden away at the corner of a development.
The project has resulted in the creation of an attractive, biodiverse, publicly accessible space. The flooding issues have been addressed and the Rose Garden has been given a new lease of life. Evaluation and monitoring of the Rose Garden project over the next few years will allow the Trust to play a role in further building the case for sustainable drainage. This includes establishing the benefits of a nature-based approach, including amenity and biodiversity, which will inform other projects.
The Green Action Trust would like to thank all the partners involved for their support in making this project a reality. In fact, one of the positive outcomes ‘behind the scenes’ has been the strengthening of relationships with Falkirk Council and the community around Grangemouth. It has been a long-standing ambition of both to regenerate the Rose Garden and a fundamental aim to progress this alongside the wider Zetland Park Heritage Lottery Fund initiative. The creation of a raingarden, the expertise provided by Green Action Trust, and the funding given by both NatureScot and Falkirk Council, have been incredibly well received.
Allana Hughes, Zetland Park Project Officer at Falkirk Council said:
“Working in partnership with the Green Action Trust on the development of Zetland Park Raingarden has been a really positive experience. Using their knowledge and ability to secure funding to further support the project, we have transformed the park’s rose garden from an area which frequently flooded and was in decline into a garden which is once again loved by the community.”
This project is supported by the Scottish Government’s Nature Restoration Fund, managed by NatureScot.
