Case Study - Church Marshes
General Information
Site Name
Church Marshes Country Park
Site Location
Saffron Way, Milton Regis Sittingbourne, Kent. ME10
2EX.
Grid Reference
TQ 912 653
Timetable of works to date
- 2001-2002: Agree design with client and undertake extensive consultation with the community and all stakeholders
- 2003: Work on detailed design and contract with the principal contractor Rural Arisings
- September 2003: Planning permission acquired
- January 2004: Rural Arisings start on site
- Spring 2006: Community Planting Days
- Autumn 2006: Friends of Church Marshes group established
- June 2006: Phase 1 area capped and landscape improvements complete
- Spring 2007: Community Planting Days
The Vision
The Vision for Church Marshes Country Park is to create a safe and exciting green space which meets the needs of a predominantly urban population within a countryside setting rich in biodiversity. The park will be a focus for a diverse range of outdoor informal leisure activities, with opportunities for learning, developed to celebrate Sittingbourne’s rich heritage and vibrant culture.
Project Management:
Client: Swale Borough Council
Landowner with overall responsibility for resolving contamination
issues at the site and delivering a country park in accordance with
the local plan.
Project Manager: Groundwork Kent &
Medway
Also act as the clients agent and designer, responsible for
promoting the project, working with the local community, schools
and facilitating the Friends group.
Main contractor: Rural Arisings
Project facilitator with overall responsibility for delivering the
provision and placement of fill works in accordance with
agreed technical and Environment Agency requirements. Working in
partnership with Groundwork Kent & Medway in terms of
design and technical support, and are also answerable to the
client Swale Borough Council.
Site Description
Church Marshes Country Park comprises 52 hectares of grassland, scrub, ponds, reed beds (including ditches), new wild flower Meadows and new woodland shelter belts.
Due to the past uses of the site, initially as brick fields and
latterly for landfill activities combined with the necessary
capping works (currently being undertaken) large areas of the park
are no longer considered to be marshland as it once would have
been.
Since the cessation of landfill activities and except for the
maintenance of the paths and picnic areas, a policy of non
intervention had been adopted, this has lead to a natural
succession of scrub.
Much of the boundary of the site is well defined with mature scrubland and a mature line of poplar trees (running Southeast to Northwest) towards the northern section of the site provides an effective shelter belt and a visually striking feature which is familiar to this part of Kent.
Whilst the Country Park has over the years had many destructive human interventions, there are a number of features such as wetlands and ditches that remain to this day. As part of the restoration project, the creation of large expanses of meadows and grasslands will help retain an open feel to the landscape. This will have an added benefit of providing a safe environment for visitors who should feel secure walking around the place. A series of loosely held spaces are being created using primarily scrub but also open woodland, which will provide for different habitats and a variety of recreational purposes.
Holy Trinity Church (Northwest boundary) which gives the park its name, is a landmark building and can be seen from many parts of the site. This will remain a prominent feature and focal point through careful and appropriate landscape design.
The site’s intrinsic value is enhanced by being bordered by Milton Creek (Site of Nature Conservation Interest - SNCI) and surrounding marshlands. The site also has the potential to create green route connections to the residential areas of Milton and Kemsley, the town centre of Sittingbourne and the wider Kent countryside and the Saxon Shore Way footpath.
Site heritage
Roman, Industrial and Maritime
Heritage:
The site has been settled since early times and there is
archaeological evidence suggesting Saxon and Roman
settlements in the area. Holy Trinity Church and Castle Rough are
remaining local historical features.
The site has been used since Victorian times for barge-building and gravel extraction for brick-making. Barges transported the bricks to London and returned with London’s domestic waste to be buried at the site. Paper mills and cement manufacturing were other important industries which expanded in the 19th Century. Landfill operations carried on at the site until 1991 when it was closed and capped with soil and grass.
Background and Recent History:
The site, although open to the public as a country park, is a former landfill site. Consultants commissioned by landowners Swale Borough Council in the mid 1990s recommended that, to fully discharge their liabilities with regard to the safety of the site, the park should either be closed to the public or some form of remediation measures need to be put in place to deal with the buried contaminants.
The site has historically been used as a gypsy/travellers encampment. This has lead to a number of problems including extensive fires and fly tipping. The travellers camp has been closed and recent improvements to site security appear to have eliminated this issue.
The eastern zone of the site was fully remediated in the late 1990s with much of the land being put back to grassland with some woodland belt plantations and a basic path network.
In 2001 Swale Borough Council invited Groundwork Kent & Medway to project-manage the design and development of the country park in consultation with the local community, other statutory and non-statutory consultees and interested parties. A detailed plan, including remediation of the landfill and re-enhancement of habitats, was produced and is now being implemented through a public/private partnership.
It was during 2001 that Groundwork Kent & Medway (GKM), in partnership with and on behalf on Swale Borough Council and in conjunction with private sector partners and Managing Contractor Rural Arisings, identified an opportunity through an Environment Agency Waste Management Licensing Exemption to import inert waste subsoils and place them to a depth of two metres to deal with the landfill contaminants. Another exemption allows the placement of materials to a greater depth than 2m to create earth mounds. The partnership also gained a DEFRA licence for the ecological mitigation of great crested newts.
The restoration project is concerned with a 25hectare site (ie to the north/west of the SKLR). The whole of the project site, apart from the SNCI wetland habitat areas, will therefore be covered with inert waste subsoils. This operation will completely destroy much of the existing habitats. However, new habitats will be created which amount to a net habitat and enhancement gain for particular protected and other species.
Restoration work began on site is anticipated to be complete by 2011.
Groundwork Kent & Medway
48 Canterbury Street
Gillingham
Kent ME7 5UN
| T | 01634 855166 |
| F | 01634 855177 |
| E | gkm@groundwork.org.uk |