We have completed our delivery of Bright Green, designed and built by the community, funded by the council. This page covers the detailed plans, actions, and outcomes of rejuvenating the group of trees on the corner of St Marys Street and Parsonage Street in Hulme, Manchester. This space was renamed Bright Green in memory of a community member who helped improve and maintain the space.
The proposal
Top tips:
- Consult the local community
- Have clear aims, and how you will measure success
- Be specific about how the money will be spent
Funding the scheme
We applied for Neighbourhood Investment Funds for £2000. We were awarded £1,991. The winning bid is the PDF below.
We did make some mistakes in our application. As this was the third draft. Throughout our proposal we were talking about improving and expanding green space. However at the end of the outcomes section… we started talking about planters! These had been in a previous draft of our proposal and we forgot to take this out. But at least we know that the majority of the proposal was approved.
Our previous drafts were up to £5,600 and covered payment for staff time, and (quite expensive) planter cladding costs. We removed the staff payment, contractor time and planters from our proposal for later attempts.
It’s also worth pointing out that the colours we chose to use should have been checked as the readability of white text on a light green background isn’t great, we wont be doing that next time!
Where is the money coming from?
Manchester City Council. Each year (as of 2022) every ward of Manchester has £20,000 of funding allocated for the Neighbourhood Investment Fund. The MCC website states that applications should not exceed £10,000 but through discussions with the Neighbourhood Team and Councillors, they told us, it is much more likely to get a scheme through that is under £2,000. So that’s what we aimed for on the second time round.
Half planter designs
We hosted a community design event, looking at the green space and co-designing the area. The first stage of design is adding a planter on the south and west edges. We are currently awaiting the permission of Manchester City Council Housing Department, as they are the owners of the plot of land.
The planter will raise the height of the soil, and provide additional depth of soil to grow more herbs and flowers for the community. The planters will utilise oak sleepers, which will last for decades. It will also prevent parking on the green space.
How can you get involved?
If you live, work, or learn in Hulme you are welcome to become a member of SusCoHulme. As a member you can vote on decisions for:
- – what we plant in the space,
- – how we maintain the area, and
- – future projects
You can also be notified whenever there is an meeting, event, funding update, or project update. If you want to join and haven’t already please visit our sign up form.
Why was Phase 2 canceled?
Phase 2 was a flood risk reduction scheme which would have cost around £10,000. In the final stages of developing our bid to the Greater Manchester Green Spaces Fund, Manchester Highways Department informed us that the works could not go ahead. The reason given was the river Cornbrook was already running under the road, technical name is a culvert, and you cannot build within 3m of a culvert. As we were proposing removing concrete and back filling with soil, we were potentially interfering with the structure covering Cornbrook. The scheme was not submitted to the Green Spaces Fund.
A future alternative to bring nature to culverted rivers would be to open them up and bring rivers back to cities, but this would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds, and require significant innovative thinking and careful planning.
Good news is we knew where the water wanted to be and were planning a solution to surface flooding.
It’s complete!
We completed the build of the area. We planted the following plants along our new wood border:
- Cherry tree
- Apple tree
- Apricot tree
- Pine tree
- Bay tree
- Sage
- Lemon Balm
- Lavender
- Strawberries
- Honey berries
- Blackcurrants
- Blueberries
- Carrots
- Runner beans
- Sunflowers
If you have any questions or comments send them to suscohulme@gmail.com
