The primary purpose of the White Rose Forest’s Green Streets® programme is to increase the cover of urban woodland, especially where trees will bring the greatest benefit to communities and nature. Often this may be where these trees are adding value to an exciting neighbourhood project that is already underway, and whilst the immediate impact might be from other aspects of the scheme, the value of the trees will literally grow and grow.
One such project has been at Ash Green, in the community of Mixenden, a place with high levels of deprivation. This was led by Calderdale Council and completed in 2024. The project was designed to address a number of challenges and therefore included a range of interventions:
- Reconfiguration of the road space to reduce traffic speed, pavement parking and congestion and encourage active travel, especially for the school children.
- Refurbishment of a play area adjacent to the school.
- Reduction in road width to accommodate rain garden features.
- Twenty-seven standard trees planted round the site and a further twenty-four in the adjacent area.
The community was heavily involved in identifying the local issues and then consulted throughout the process of design and re-design, to ensure the local support was there for the project to be a success.
The Ash Green Master Plan © Calderdale Council / 2B Landscape Consultancy LTD
Physical interventions on the site have been designed to have long-lasting benefits for the local environment and community. They include the following:
Rain Gardens
These were the first retrofit rain gardens in Calderdale and were designed to reduce the peak flow of water into the combined sewer network at times of intense rainfall, as well as provide habitat and much needed local greenery. They incorporate specialist kerb features designed by local company Marshalls, which reduce the speed of the run-of entering the rain garden to stop erosion. Slow the Flow, a local charity specialising in natural food management interventions, carried out interpretation work with the children at the school to give them an understanding of why rain gardens are important and how they work, and the children themselves were involved in planting the rain gardens, which was a great experience and gave them a sense of ownership.
Before and after view from Ash Tree Road 2023 and 2025 © Google
Tree Planting
The trees planted with White Rose Forest funding around the site will be an ever more important asset. The list of benefits they supply now, and even more so in the future, is significant, very much delivering the benefit of Green Streets® at a local level:
- Helping to reduce surface water flows by intercepting and holding water in the
tree canopy and on their branches and trunk. - Reducing air pollution by capturing particulates from the atmosphere and
holding them on their leaves. - Providing shade in the warmest part of the year to cool air temperatures and
protect people from harmful UV radiation. - Being important habitats in themselves and linking habitat networks across the
urban area. - Bringing people closer to nature and increasing their sense of well-being.
- Providing visual impact as key features in road management infrastructure.
Street trees at Ash Green providing shade, supporting surface water management and road management features
The Ash Green project was developed by Calderdale Council through 2B Landscape Consultancy Limited, with funding from Active Travel England and West Yorkshire Combined Authority. Green Streets® support was funded through the Government’s Grow Back Greener fund.
Find out more about the White Rose Forest Green Streets® programme.
Top image: The children of Ash Green Primary School help with the planting of the rain garden features ©Calderdale Council