Three pocket parks with trees, planting and rain gardens are open on St Faith's Street, Brewer Street and Union Street. What changed, and why the council built them.

Three small parks have opened in Maidstone town centre on stretches of street that were paved over until this summer.

They are on St Faith’s Street, Brewer Street and Union Street. Maidstone Borough Council announced they were complete on 22 September.

What has been built

The council says the three pocket parks include:

  • new trees
  • planting beds
  • rain gardens, which catch and soak up rainfall instead of sending it straight into the drains
  • places to sit (benches are visible in the council’s photograph above)

The sites were described in July as underused areas of highway, dominated by hard surfaces. The council said then that the work would take about six weeks. It needed road closures, including St Faith’s Street between Week Street and Station Road.

Why the council says it did it

The stated aim is to help the town centre cope with heat and heavy rain. The council says the planting will cool the streets in hot weather and reduce surface water running off during downpours, easing pressure on the drainage system.

It also says the parks give pollinators and other wildlife “stepping stones” between green spaces in the centre.

Councillor Clive English, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environmental Services and Enforcement, said: “These pocket parks show how even relatively small spaces can make a big difference.”

Neither the July nor the September release says what the parks cost or how they were paid for.

Timeline: 30 April, council adopts a Rights of Nature framework. 24 July, council says work on three pocket parks on St Faith's Street, Brewer Street and Union Street is set to begin, taking about six weeks. 20 August, living-roof bus shelters announced, installed overnight August to October. 22 September, council says the three pocket parks are open.
How this year's town centre greening projects fit together. Graphic by Maidstone Live
Share this chartFacebookWhatsAppX

Part of a wider set of changes

The pocket parks are one of several green projects in the centre this year:

  • Rights of Nature. In April the council became, by its own account, the first in the UK to adopt a Rights of Nature framework, which asks it to weigh nature’s interests in its decisions.
  • Living-roof bus shelters. In August it said new shelters with planted roofs, supplied by Bauer Media Outdoor, would replace the existing town centre shelters. They are being fitted overnight between August and October.
  • Living pillars. Pillars with vertical planting are already in place, the council says.

What it means for you

If you walk through the centre from Maidstone East, St Faith’s Street is the obvious one to see. Brewer Street and Union Street run off Week Street, a few minutes’ walk away.

If you are driving in, our guide to parking in Maidstone lists the nearby car parks, including the two on Union Street.

Sources