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G7 Summit: Nature Compact
On Friday 11 June, Boris Johnson welcomed leaders from the UK, US, Canada, Japan, France, Germany and Italy, along with representatives of the European Union to the G7 summit held in Carbis Bay, Cornwall. The summit got off to a rocky start. Boris Johnson was widely criticised for arriving at the G7 Summit in Cornwall by plane, with The Green Party tweeting there was: “a big gaping hole between Boris’s climate talk and climate action.” Greta Thunberg also held issue, speaking out against the G7 leaders, for watching “jet planes perform aerobatics” and having a “steak and lobster” celebration instead…
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Construction output falls by 2% in April
Monthly construction output fell by 2.0% in April 2021 compared with March 2021, falling to £13,961 million, and was the first month-on-month fall since December 2020 when output fell by 2.2% according to the Office of National Statistics. This comes directly after a strong increase in March 2021, where output increased by 5.8%. The fall occurred due to a decline in both new work and repair and maintenance work. New work fell by 2.9% (£261 million) in April 2021 compared with March 2021, which was the first fall since December 2020 when it fell by 3.4% (£290 million). Private new…
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Horticultural Trades Association predicts tree shortage issues for government targets
Tree planting targets are likely to missed because the government failed to engage with the sector before setting them, says HTA board member Brian Fraser. He appeared before the House of Commons Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) select committee to give evidence, explaining growers cannot meet demand in the time frame outlined. Fraser, who is also a member of the HTA’s Tree and Hedging Group and Director of Oakover Nursery in Ashford, Kent, explained that there are not enough trees in production at present to enable the target of 30,000ha to be planted by 2024 to be met. Brian Fraser said: “The Government needs to urgently work and engage fully with the industry…
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Green-tech helps primary school create community allotment
Leading landscape supplier Green-tech has stepped in to donate topsoil for a community growing project at forward-thinking New Park Primary Academy School. New Park Primary Academy School in Harrogate, North Yorkshire is part of the Northern Star Academies Trust. They used award-winning Massey Garden Design to landscape part of their school playing field and create an area for a community allotment. The school approached Green-tech and asked for a donation of topsoil for the raised beds. Their idea is that families will sign up to take ownership of a raised bed and grow vegetables for their own use. There is a…
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Pro Landscaper Business Awards delayed until 30 July 2021
As we all thought the government has postponed ‘freedom day’ until 19th July (though this may be bought forward to the 5th July). This, of course, means that we are having to delay announcing and celebrating the Pro Landscaper Business Awards winners until Friday 30 July 2021. This is not ideal but unfortunately out of our control. Boris Johnson has promised that 19th July is a termination date of any restrictions. On the bright side, The 4th annual Pro Landscaper Business Awards will be an exceptional event. We have some excellent shortlisted companies, the food at East Wintergarden is delicious…
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Senior appointment at landscape architect practice Influence
Nottinghamshire and London-based landscape architect Influence has bolstered its team with the appointment of Olli Wheeler as senior landscape architect. Influence provides specialist landscape architecture, urban design, environment planning and expert witness – and alongside the Wildlife Trust – is the practice behind the bold green vision for Nottingham’s now redundant Broadmarsh which was shared last year and achieved national acclaim. A chartered member of the Landscape Institute, Olli will work alongside the established team delivering landscape planning and design projects at the Newark practice and will undertake Landscape and Visual Impact Assessments (LVIA) and produce technical planning reports. Previously…
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Bio-based building material to be introduced at RHS Chelsea 2021
A garden, originally intended to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Florence Nightingale in 2020, will be built by award-winning landscape company Bowles & Wyer and unveiled at RHS Chelsea 2021 to celebrate the importance of nursing in the 21st century. Sponsored by the Burdett Trust for Nursing and created by designer Robert Myers, The Florence Nightingale Garden – A Celebration of Modern Nursing will see Bowles & Wyer introduce innovative bio-based building materials to create an imagined hospital garden, inspired by Florence Nightingale’s pioneering views on nursing, at a time when the global spotlight is centred on health…
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New green heart unveiled as part of ongoing regeneration of Longbridge
Residents, employees and visitors to Longbridge are now able to enjoy new green space in the heart of the town centre after work to create new public space including an extension to Austin Park was completed. In total, the works have seen 46 new trees, 3,500 new shrubs and plants, 6,500 new bulbs and several species of wildflowers planted, while new bespoke seating has been designed and installed for up to 80 people to relax on. The scheme has been created to provide a place where people will want to explore and spend time, enhance the quality of the town…
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BBC Radio 2’s Big Bee Challenge: George Hassall shares bee-friendly garden tips
Zoe Ball has announced BBC Radio 2’s Big Bee Challenge, a children’s competition which aims to promote pollination and support bees. The BBC is asking for children to express their creativity and imagination by designing their own bright and buzzy garden that will attract bees, and other pollinating insects, to help pollinate flowers whilst also creating new ones too. Built by the RHS, the winner will see their garden design come to life at a children and young people’s mental health NHS Trust site. They will be invited to open the garden at an outside broadcast of The Zoe Ball…
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Perennial’s Health and Wellbeing Survey
Perennial is reaching out to people working in horticulture to find out about the health and wellbeing challenges they face through its Health and Wellbeing Survey. It is encouraging everyone who works in horticulture to take part in the anonymous survey to provide a greater understanding of the challenges people are facing and the issues affecting them. The insights will be shared with the industry and help Perennial develop services to support people working in horticulture. Developed in partnership with the Stress Management Society, the Health and Wellbeing Survey takes just 10 minutes to complete and is completely anonymous and…
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Building back: construction needs 217,000 new workers by 2025
After a rapid recovery in construction this year amid the slow easing of lockdown restrictions, the Construction Skills Network (CSN) has reported that by 2025 the sector will need to have recruited an additional 217,000 new workers just to meet the demand. According to the CSN, most English regions will experience an increase in construction workers by 2025, with East Midlands (1.7%) and West Midlands (1.4%) forecast to lead demand. Scotland (1.4%) and Wales (0.7%) are also predicted to do well. The only region forecast to see a slight decline in workforce is the North East (-0.1%). The most in…
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Glendale wins prestigious £3m contract with Heathrow Airport
Glendale is proud to announce that it has been appointed to deliver a full-service grounds maintenance service to Heathrow comprising two sub-packages. The first package is for landside which commenced on 1st April 2021. The second package is for work carried out airside and is due to commence on 1st January 2022. Heathrow covers an area of 1,227 hectares and has two runways with four terminals (2-5). Terminal 1 was closed in 2015 having been open for 47 years. Heathrow serves approximately 84 countries for its 81 million passengers (pre-pandemic figures). The five-year contract which is valued at nearly £3m…
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Government urged to create wilder national parks to tackle nature and climate crises
PM’s pledge to protect 30% of Britain for nature not credible without action. Government action is needed to make Britain’s national parks much wilder and fit for purpose to tackle the nature and climate crises, says Rewilding Britain as it launches a new campaign. Rewilding Britain says nature is badly depleted in the parks – with protected sites often in a worse condition than elsewhere, key species missing or declining, and decades-old laws hampering National Park Authorities’ ability to protect nature. The charity says the UK Government and devolved administrations should create core rewilding areas on public land across 10%…
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Es Devlin’s visionary forest at Somerset House for London Design
The Forest for Change is the centrepiece of the 2021 London Design Biennale which runs from 1st June until 27th June 2021 at Somerset House. Designed by leading international artist and designer, and Artistic Director of the Biennale Es Devlin, in collaboration with Urban Greening Specialists Scotscape and Landscape Designer Philip Jaffa, the outdoor experience is presented in partnership with Project Everyone, a not-for profit agency founded by Richard Curtis, Kate Garvey and Gail Gallie to further awareness and engagement with the United Nations’ Global Goals for Sustainable Development. This forest of 400 trees from 27 varieties typical of those found across the UK…
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Green-tech launches new Specification Collection
Green-tech has designed and revealed their smart new collection of literature purely for the specification market. The Specification Collection includes their most requested Specification brochures, including Green Roof Substrates, Soils and Growing Media, and Wildflower Seed. Green-tech Specifier is the specification team of leading landscape supplier Green-tech. The team focuses on the technical specification for creating landscape solutions with Landscape Architects, Contractors and Garden Designers. The department was established over a decade ago to meet the needs and demand of Landscape architects and specifiers who wanted assistance at the specification, estimating and drawing stages of their projects. The team comprises…
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World Green Roof Day
Its World Green Roof Day on Sunday 6th June and Green-tech has been involved in an unusual Green Roof – a bus shelter! We are all aware of the effects of global warming, especially within our cities. The increased emissions from traffic and industry are rapidly toxifying our air, to the point that in many cities the air quality falls short of the safe guidelines. Along with air pollution comes the resulting heat soak, when all the hard concrete and glass surfaces within a city both reflect and absorb heat. This is known as the Urban Heat Island, which can…
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Taking it international
International garden design has always been a source of inspiration for gardens here in the UK. Unsurprisingly, the pandemic has influenced design trends in an innovative way, and now, many trends are situated around the prospect of bringing the indoors outside, and creating holiday vibes at home. As an industry, we have been designing gardens this way for years, but it does appear to be further developing due to the new wide-spread appeal of the ‘fifth room.’ The fifth room is a concept that blurs the lines between the inside and out. It’s all about allocating the garden as another…
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Future High Street success for Heanor with £8.5m award
Heanor has secured a major regeneration boost through the Government’s Future High Street Fund after being awarded £8.52 million as part of an initiative to kickstart investment and redevelop the area. The £8,592,837 award is part of £17.8 million town centre regeneration project, funded by partners to transform and adapt Heanor to deliver a sustainable future. Amber Valley Borough Council has been working closely with town partners and stakeholders to develop the project to bring transformational change to the borough and secure a slice of the Government’s £675 million Future High Street Fund. The fund was established in order to…
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Beware of the material shortage
Talasey Group contact loyal customers to thank them for their continued support, patience and understanding during these difficult and uncertain times the material shortage is having on the company. During these extremely challenging times, we at Talasey Group feel it necessary to contact you as our valued customer. To update whilst giving you some background to the unprecedented actions we are having to implement in order to maintain our business, and more importantly to continue providing the best support and service to you now and in the future as the world continues to recover from COVID-19. Despite our very best…
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T H WHITE expands operations to Warwick and Stourport
T H WHITE plans to acquire the agricultural, construction and garden machinery operations of the Murley dealerships at Warwick and Stourport. The expansion of T H WHITE’s businesses to Warwickshire and in Worcestershire is a natural one for the neighbouring dealer, supported by main suppliers, New Holland, Manitou and Doosan. All stakeholders are preparing a smooth transition, meaning continuity for staff and customers, and business as usual for trade with a name change above the door. The deal is scheduled to complete on 30th June 2021 subject to concluding the final stages of due diligence and legal processes. With this…
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RHS calls on gardeners to make the switch from ‘mains to rains’
The RHS and Cranfield University are calling on the UK’s gardeners to swap mains water for rainwater as they launch a new online tool that calculates the potential saving from adopting different water efficient practices on their plots. As much as 205 billion litres of water per year – enough to fill one billion water butts – is thought to be used by homeowners outside every year with a large proportion of this attributed to gardens. While plants are known to be beneficial for health, wellbeing and the environment, making small changes can not only help save water but reduce…
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UK Landscape Barometer records continued high performance
Once again, the UK Landscape Barometer can confidently report there has been dominantly high performance across all sectors for the trading month of March 2021. Overall, garden designers continued to present the highest percentages in increases. This comes as no surprise due to the high number of people wanting to improve and enhance their gardens because of lockdown, and the increased amount of time being spent at home. But it was interesting to see that domestic landscapers saw the largest difference in increases when compared to their figures from the month before (February 2021). Nationally, projects were up 76%, conversion…
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Video: Gloucestershire Royal Hospital – COVID-19 Memorial Garden
Millboard were delighted to join other contributors in helping to create this memorial garden, designed by Danny Clarke and installed by New Homes Landscape.
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Etesia Launch the ET Lander Electric Utility Vehicle
Etesia UK is proud to announce the launch of the ET Lander – a new fully electric utility vehicle built specifically for use on roads and all types of paths in both the town and countryside. Always attentive to professionals – particularly local authorities and contractors, Etesia has developed a unique vehicle to meet the future needs of their customers. Designed and manufactured at the Etesia factory in France, the 100% electric ET Lander brings together over 60 years of expertise in green space maintenance. Spacious, well-equipped and user-friendly, the ET Lander is built on a robust chassis and has…
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Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew commits to become climate positive by 2030
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew releases its first Sustainability Strategy, setting out a series of ambitious commitments to rapidly reduce the organisation’s carbon footprint and utilise its trusted voice, alongside its workforce of leading plant scientists and network of global partnerships, to call for the change needed to tackle the environmental emergency. The overarching target is to go beyond ‘Net Zero’ with Kew committing to becoming ‘Climate Positive’ by 2030, setting a science-based carbon emissions reduction target. This ambitious target is one of the commitments outlined in Kew’s new 10-year strategy published in March ‘Our Manifesto for Change’. The organisation,…
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