Maintaining quality urban environments for river corridor users and stakeholders
Who’s involved?
Lead partner: LB Lewisham
Partners: Chester City Council, NW England
City Council of 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands.
Each city features a river corridor with similar problems but of varying size, environmental and social characteristics.
What’s the project about?
Flood prevention schemes and urban development have, in the past, often led to rivers being enclosed in concrete, buried and ignored. Many local authorities are reluctant to implement measures towards environmental improvement within their urban river corridors for fear that investments will be nullified through vandalism. As a consequence, many rivers are fenced off or hidden from local people. This, in turn, leads to further neglect and environmental degradation.
The QUERCUS project aims to make each river corridor an attractive feature of an urban environment through transferring the approach of Designing Out Crime from housing developments and testing it in an environmental setting.
Through increasing visibility, encouraging greater usage and ownership and clarifying the function of every part of the open space, opportunities for anti-social behaviour and criminal activity will be significantly reduced, residents will feel safer, and the environmental quality of the area will be consistently higher. The re-naturalised and newly accessible river will then form a key part of a Local Authority’s environmental commitment.
What does it mean for Lewisham?
The QUERCUS project in Lewisham focuses on the River Ravensbourne, flowing from Catford train stations in the south, to Lewisham town centre 1.5 miles downstream.
For most of this journey, the river flows through Ladywell Fields – a long linear park split into 3 sections by the river and railway.
Ladywell Fields is well used by walkers and cyclists, and the northern section of the park boasts a children’s playground, skate park and football pitch.
However, many of the park users are scarcely aware of the river. The steep banks, old fences and dense vegetation hide the river from view and make it almost totally inaccessible to the public. Rather than being an attractive focal point of the park, the river attracts litter, flytipping and graffiti.
As a result sections of the park appear poorly maintained, and as a result residents do not feel safe. 25% of residents who do not use the park stated safety concerns as the major reason for staying away.
The QUERCUS project aims to reverse all that – reducing anti-social behaviour and fear of crime through designing out crime from the river corridor.
What’s the project timescale?
From 1st April 2005 to 30th September 2008.