Rotherham River of Flowers Project Britain’s longest urban meadow

Highways & Verges

Overview:

To deliver a low-maintenance, visually impactful landscaping solution for Rotherham’s highways that protects wildlife and supports the local biodiversity action plan.

Project Details:

Since its inception in 2013, the Rotherham ‘River of Flowers’ has caused a stir. The pioneering initiative, commissioned by Rotherham Council’s Streetpride Team, saw Pictorial Meadows annual mixes sown along eight miles of verges and roundabouts.

At the time, the council was spending around £80,000 on cutting the eight miles of grass, six times a year, with outside contractors providing traffic management when the roads were closed to allow the work to take place. Transforming the grassy highways into wildflower meadows reduced the number of times the council would have to cut the central reservations, resulting in the maintenance being taken back in-house.

Over the years, the scheme has been a real success. As well as benefitting wildlife and increasing biodiversity, the wildflower highways have reduced the level of maintenance required, thus saving Rotherham Council approximately £23,000 for each two-year cycle.

Rotherham Council received over 250 emails, phone calls and letters of praise from commuters, visitors and local residents in the year following the first germination in July 2013. The council also won a Green Apple award for Environmental Best Practice as a result of the project.

Streetpride Manager, Richard Jackson, said: ‘Pictorial Meadows seed mixes are cleverly engineered so that different flowers and colours come through at different times of the year. The idea is that we get the first flush of colour in March, which are the reds and purples with the poppies and red orach.

‘When those flowers die down, the next flowers to appear will be the blues, like the cornflowers, which then grow taller and hide the dying remains of the earlier species. Yellows and oranges like the Californian poppies and corn marigolds will appear as we get into November.’

Cllr Gerald Smith, Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Development in Rotherham, commented: ‘It looked really fantastic last year with hundreds of compliments received from local residents and visitors as far afield as Scotland, Cornwall and even Australia’.


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