Pictured: Participants take a tour of the Meanwood Valley Farm
Members of West Yorkshire Flood Innovation Programme (WYFLIP) are currently exploring using Meanwood Valley Farm as a potential case study to demonstrate the many benefits of blue green infrastructure.
Board member Vanessa Allen, principal engineer at Leeds City Council and Dr Sam Ramsden, impact translation fellow with iCASP worked with Adam Ogilvie, Chief Executive of Meanwood Valley Farm and Cath Follin, Board Trustee, to organise a workshop and visit to the site to examine its potential.
Meanwood Valley Farm was set up as a charity in 1980 to protect green space, bring derelict land back into use and give communities from deprived areas the opportunity to access nature. It is open seven days a week and used by schools, as a market garden providing chemical free vegetable boxes for 100 homes and food banks and provides daily activities for adults with learning disabilities. It attracts 23,000 visitors a year.
The vision of the trustees is to re-imagine the urban farm in the 21st century to make it work better as an educational resource and a visitor attraction, to improve the health and wellbeing of people through nature and create a climate change demonstration centre on its 26 acres, including a green and blue showcase.
The farm has suffered from surface water flooding and the most recent incident last May bank holiday was the worst incident yet.
Guest speakers included Dr Alex Osborne, Knowledge Exchange Fellow in Floods and SuDS at University of Hull, who spoke about other SuDS demonstrators including Doncaster Immingham and Grimsby – a collaboration between councils and water companies to tackle surface water flooding; Catherine Johnson, from Yorkshire Water and portfolio manager of the Living With Water gave an overview of the scheme, outlining the different types of SuDS involved and stressed the importance of engagement so that local communities understand why SuDS are being introduced and Sophie Wynne from Leeds City Council explained about retro fitting – introducing SuDS in environments already built stressing their multiple benefits – improvement in water quality, providing a variety of amenities and increasing biodiversity – not just tackling surface water flooding.
Paul Maddison from Wakefield Council, who is also a member of Association of SuDS Authorities, set the national context and explained about how Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act 2010, which is to make the incorporation of SuDS into new developments mandatory, is currently under review by Defra with a plan for it to go to public consultation and be introduced by the end of 2024.
During the workshop discussion, Vanessa Allen said the site could be used as an example of how to encourage community wellness and help people understand their environment including how to protect themselves from flooding.
Paul Maddison said the site was unique, accessible and could be used to educate people about climate resilience and demonstrate to visitors how they could better protect their homes and businesses from surface water flooding and manage risks better.
Jonathan Moxon, of Leeds City Council and Chair of WYFLIP, said the setting for the workshop was brilliant and that participants could see lots of practical opportunities for using this site as a demonstrator. The principals we use could be adopted by others which support WYFLIP’s ethos for sharing learning. There are so many resources already available on the site and a ready-made audience.
There was lots of enthusiasm for the proposal at the workshop amongst speakers and participants alike and agreement that it should have a multi-purpose aspect covering carbon reduction, biodiversity, flooding, climate resilience and wellbeing. The next stage will be to take ideas back to WYFLIP Board members for further discussion about adopting the proposal as a WYFLIP project which will involve developing a vision with objectives and outcomes and securing funding for creating a very visible blue green test-bed.
