Changing Places tells stories about greening Britain - intiatives by individuals, local communities, government or multi-national corporations that contribute to a sustainable future.
More Than Concrete Cows
Friday 21st October
The reedbed at Walton Lake with volunteers reed-cutting
Milton Keynes is notorious for its many roundabouts, complex road systems and even its concrete cows. However, as Dylan Winter discovers, the town has greener credentials than most others in the United Kingdom.
A fifth of the land within the town's boundary is green space and the Parks Trust was created in 1992 with the aim of managing this space strategically, so that green corridors for wildlife and people would be guaranteed in perpetuity.
Mike Street, the Trust's conservation manager and Dylan visit new plantations where bluebells, ramsons, red campion and other flowers have been introduced to replicate the plants of ancient woodlands in the area.
Mike shows Dylan a mature reedbed created at a nearby lake, a new plantation where rides for butterflies have been built into the design and a stony field tailor-made to suit meadow flowers and grasshoppers.
Future plans for the town include a floodplain woodland and organic produce from cattle that graze the town's green spaces.
