A new edible park for Bristol

A demonstration forest garden/permaculture park for the city, showing that our green spaces can be beautiful, productive, and low-maintenance, all at the same time. Bristolians value their existing parks and green spaces, so we don't want to take-over an existing area, but to create a new green space for the city. This could form the heart of, for example, new development alongside Temple Meads, also demonstrating how derelict land can be reclaimed and transformed.

Why the contribution is important

If Bristol is to fulfil its ambition to be a low carbon city, we need to look at innovative ways to make ourselves more self-sufficient. Permanent edible planting (as opposed to conventional annual planting) may prove less susceptible to odd weather patterns such as a one-off dry summer or an especially wet autumn. However, this way of growing our fruit & veg remains relatively under-explored. Using a central park as a demonstration area for new ways of urban growing would help bring these methods more into the mainstream, and would allow us to learn what works well in Bristol - experience which can be shared across the city.  

by user721621 on December 13, 2013 at 06:53PM

Current Rating

Average rating: 3.9
Based on: 10 votes

Comments

  • Posted by user563645 December 17, 2013 at 13:50

    Is the land next to Temple Meads usable for food production? Is it not polluted from many years of industrial use? Also, who would be in charge of tending the plants/green areas? I have seen shared allotments, where it ends up with one person doing all the work, the other person just turning up to harvest the crops! The organisation of this needs to be explained better!

  • Posted by user411811 January 14, 2014 at 11:37

    anyone who is interested in reclaiming industrial land for food use should look into Paul Staments pioneering work on bioremediation, using mycelial networks (mushrooms) to break down pollutants and make land useable again. It's truly awe inspiring!
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