The plan to develop a Blue Green Demonstrator site at Meanwood Valley Urban Farm (MVUF) in Leeds to demonstrate the many benefits of Sustainable Urban Drainage (SuDS) is now one step closer to becoming a reality.
Yorkshire Resilience Flood and Coastal Committee approved a £97,000 Local Levy bid from the West Yorkshire Flood Innovation Programme Board to use the site as a case study, which can be replicated in other areas and help reduce the risk of flooding in the Meanwood Beck catchment.
The vision of the trustees of the urban farm, which was set up as a charity, is to re-imagine the site 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.
There is an ambition to deliver a climate resilient catchment, moving away from solely relying on a traditional hard engineering approach and MVUF is at the centre of this innovative plan.
The Local Levy funding will cover a dedicated resource to project manage this ambitious and innovative approach to a climate resilient catchment and a feasibility study can now be produced on the next steps for this project.
We’re thrilled that the funding has been approved for this project, and that we are able to test these measures and provide the benefits to the Meanwood Valley Urban Farm and the communities it serves.
As the impacts of climate change become more prominent in the years to come, the learning from schemes like this will also be invaluable for increasing resilience across Leeds. Vanessa Allen, principal engineer, Flood and Climate Resilience Team, Leeds City Council.
Reducing flood risk is a principle underpinning the objectives of this project, but the ambition is to deliver a much wider range of outcomes including linking to local employment and education programmes, improving the environment, supporting research on blue/green infrastructure and creating a strong creative and cultural heritage.
Mark Wilkinson, team leader at the Environment Agency and WYFLIP Board member
We are keen for the farm to be a place that demonstrates examples of things people can do in their own homes, gardens and workplaces to mitigate against the effects of climate change, so we are delighted that the bid has been successful.
The need to reduce flooding, improve water quality and biodiversity are pressing issues both here in Meanwood and across Leeds so I hope our site being a case study will help us to collectively come up with some real, practical solutions.
Adam Ogilvie, MUVF Chief Executive of Meanwood Urban Valley Farm
The proposals are to:-
- Demonstrate the types of measures that can be used for integrated water management, to reduce flooding, improve water quality and biodiversity as well as provide amenity at the site
- Provide an education opportunity for the community (residential and businesses) for blue / green and Natural Flood Management (NFM) measures. This will be initially for the Meanwood catchment using the assets delivered at MVUF. It will promote wellness and mental wellbeing, including creative and interpretive measures to engage and inform
- Provide a training opportunity for partners such as Yorkshire Water, the Environment Agency and Risk Management Authorities. It will also be a demonstration opportunity as Schedule 3 is rolled out.
A working group has been set up to develop the proposals led by WYFLIP Board member Vanessa Allen, principal engineer at Leeds City Council; Dr Sam Ramsden, impact translation fellow with iCASP; Adam Ogilvie, MUVF Chief Executive and Cath Follin, MUVF Board trustee, James Freeman, Yorkshire Water; and Mark Wilkinson, Environment Agency.
The farm already has strong links to the community and educational groups and Yorkshire Water is already working with local schools promoting climate resilience.