Rewild the soil: The largest urban rewilding project is going underground

Rewild the soil: The largest urban rewilding project is going underground - Natural History Museum

a golf course with bunkers amongst woodland and a town in the distance — Turning a golf course into a parkland was not without controversy, but the team managing it has been working with the local communities to understand their needs since the very start ©The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

The largest urban rewilding project in the UK is happening on an old golf course.

But decades of intensive management of the parkland has taken its toll on soil life. The team looking after the park are now not only thinking about how best to manage what is above the ground, but the critical importance of the complex world that lives beneath it too.

Standing in an open expanse of scrubby grass surrounded by patches of woodland on the outskirts of Derby city, and something feels slightly off.

There is a grand, old looking building to one side, whilst the areas of the grass are still kept neatly trimmed. The tree line also looks a bit too orderly, and there are some curious patches of sand which are slowly being encroached on.

That’s because if you were stood in Allestree Park three years ago, you’d have been more likely to spot a golfing albatross and an eagle rather than dog walkers and bird watchers. What was once a municipal golf course is now the UK’s largest urban rewilding project.

“To look at this area now, you’d think you were in the middle of the countryside,” explains David Winslow, the Community Parks Officer for Derby City Council. “But in actual fact we’re right on the edge of Derby City. If you put a pin in the centre of Allestree Park within a mile radius you’re talking 50,000 people, two miles 100,000, and within three miles a quarter of a million. So the park is quite intensively used with a constant flow of people. That means we’ve got to not only manage the natural side, but the community side of this project too.”

Allestree park is on the edge of Derby and surrounded by houses, making it the largest urban rewilding project in the UK ©The Trustees of the Natural History Museum, London

The first stage of this project has already started. The team have allowed large parts of the once manicured greens to grow long and shaggy, whilst the hollows of the old bunkers are beginning to provide protection for the plants able to grow in the sand.

Posted On: 19/04/2024

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