Colchester and its “cat’s litter tray” that cost £93,000! 😮

MaizieD

^Re the roundabout: You need only ask why the weeds are growing happily in an area designed to deter weeds.
Any gardner knows that weeds don't mind topsoil, sand, gravel or even paving flags. Maybe they didn’t realise when they poured on all that sand.^

NOTHING deters a weed 😁

A weed is just a plant in the wrong place.

Wonderful for wildlife too.

Thank you Whitewavemark2 for posting much more information about the project than the newspapers that want to knock the project chose to print.

Many years ago, I was one of the team who planted the Dry Garden at RHS Hyde Hall, under the management of the then curator Matthew Wilson and inspired by the work of Beth Chatto.

Many of the beds and borders at Hyde Hall are high maintenance. One of the main points of the Dry Garden was that it would be left to its own devices other than the occasional tidy. It wouldn’t be watered. Planting was very sparse with space for plants to spread and self seed. For the first few years it really didn’t look that great but look at it now.

www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/hyde-hall/garden-highlights/dry-garden

Tee trend is towards wetter weather and more storms in the UK.

Allira

MaizieD

^Re the roundabout: You need only ask why the weeds are growing happily in an area designed to deter weeds.
Any gardner knows that weeds don't mind topsoil, sand, gravel or even paving flags. Maybe they didn’t realise when they poured on all that sand.^

NOTHING deters a weed 😁

A weed is just a plant in the wrong place.

Wonderful for wildlife too.

I would hope that the Albert roundabout planting is considerable better than just wild flowers. Wild flowers are very labour intensive in that the area needs to be cleared of dead vegetation which would enrich the soil every year and, left to their own devices, the more invasive, strongly growing species take over after a year or two.

I do have confidence that the Beth Chatto team will do a really good, durable design.

The council will still have to keep on top of those weeds, though. Seeds come drifting in from all over.

Yes, they started off with good intentions here, but our Council mowed at the wrong time and last year it all looked a bit sad.

The thing about the Beth Chatto Gravel Garden is that the planting was designed to cope with future drought conditions
It is not labour-saving - well it wouldn’t be with all those gardeners on-site would it?
We are all trying to think outside the box and plan and plant for dry summers, but what about wet autumns?
There will be people all over the country still scooping the silt and mud from their now uninsurable homes.
My friend in a neighbouring village still has the dehumidifiers running and restoration/refurbishment on her cottage isn’t due to start until January.
This roundabout looks sad and ugly but so do the overgrown roundabouts near me which enjoyed “No mow May” even less in June and became a positive hazard in July because of the height of the grasses which obscured visibility.
My point is there is no “on size fits all” and even less substitute for good gardening, planting and maintenance.

The thing about the Beth Chatto Gravel Garden is that the planting was designed to cope with future drought conditions

I remember a Monty Don article advising us all to plant Mediterranean plants, happy in drought conditions, as the UK would be enjoying Mediterranean-type summers in the future with global warming.

The following summer was one of the wettest on record.
Climate change will mean more rainfall.

There will be people all over the country still scooping the silt and mud from their now uninsurable homes.

Yes, it has been dreadful, homes flooded, rivers running down roads and even in the drier East, I'm surprised the sand has not been washed away.

www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/hyde-hall/garden-highlights/dry-garden

The garden is constructed of coarse-grained gabbro boulders and subsoil mounded over rubble. The topsoil was mixed with a high volume of sand and grit to provide the plants with a free-draining environment.

Nannylovesshopping

As a Colchester resident, I can assure you the roundabout is hideous, and yes would have much preferred pot holes attended to. Have lived here many years, we are now a city, it would be rude of me to put in print how down the pan Colchester has fallen, the High street is a joke, no decent shops, as in many other high streets, M&S moved to retail park along with Next etc, getting a parking space is unheard of, if you do find one, can take up to an hour to get out, I could go on and on, but am boring myself, and need a large gin!

I live in Colchester and know that there are a lot of expensive White Elephant projects. I totally agree with NLS
Filling potholes is the remit of Essex County Council, who sit in their Chelmsford offices and have probably never set foot in Colchester.
If this roundabout doesn't need mowing or other upkeep it'll be less of an eyesore than many others.
If the OP got information from the Colchester Gazette then they should read some of the other guff that they make up on a daily basis.

MaizieD

I'm just wondering how resistant to pollution this planting will be. Unless there has been a radical redirection of traffic since I last visited, that's a very busy roundabout.

I went to a meeting about traffic pollution this morning and Colchester only has one short stretch of road that doesn't meet the national clean air standard. That stretch is nowhere near the Albert Roundabout.

"Dense, hairy vegetation"

The Cotoneaster franchetii is a dense, evergreen shrub with thick, glossy dark green leaves that are covered in tiny hair-like fibres. Compared with other plants commonly found in the UK, the orange cotoneaster, as it is sometimes called, is ”at least 20% more effective at soaking up pollution.”

We had a scruffy roundabout covered in weeds along our main road. The council did nothing so a group of guerrilla gardeners have planted it up and maintained it this year. They got lots of soil and plants donated and the local pub has kept it watered. It looks fab and cost hardly anything

The Albert is a big roundabout formerly just grass and a few shrubs. This is a Google capture just before the redevelopment.

Approximately 2800 plants from 60 different genera have been planted, and all have been chosen to suit the free draining, poor nutrient substrate, as well as year-round interest, low maintenance needs and benefit to wildlife.

www.bethchatto.co.uk/discover/our-blog/guides/planting-on-the-albert-roundabout.htm

I am surprised that in these straitened times any council would consider spending over £90,000 on redesigning a roundabout. Turf and a Welcome to Colchester sign would be more appropriate. Spend the money on improving local services rather than giving it to an overpriced garden company.

FlitterMouse

Thank you Whitewavemark2 for posting much more information about the project than the newspapers that want to knock the project chose to print.

Many years ago, I was one of the team who planted the Dry Garden at RHS Hyde Hall, under the management of the then curator Matthew Wilson and inspired by the work of Beth Chatto.

Many of the beds and borders at Hyde Hall are high maintenance. One of the main points of the Dry Garden was that it would be left to its own devices other than the occasional tidy. It wouldn’t be watered. Planting was very sparse with space for plants to spread and self seed. For the first few years it really didn’t look that great but look at it now.

www.rhs.org.uk/gardens/hyde-hall/garden-highlights/dry-garden

As a child we lived for two years in Buckhatch Lane, which used to be the only road you could go down to get to Hyde Hall, a truly lovely garden with lots of lovely memories.

Our holiday lodge in St Oysth is close to Beth Chatto’s gardens which we are looking forward to visiting in the spring.

All the roundabouts in Colchester are hideous and hideously busy haha

vegansrock

We had a scruffy roundabout covered in weeds along our main road. The council did nothing so a group of guerrilla gardeners have planted it up and maintained it this year. They got lots of soil and plants donated and the local pub has kept it watered. It looks fab and cost hardly anything

Well done them!

eazybee

I am surprised that in these straitened times any council would consider spending over £90,000 on redesigning a roundabout. Turf and a Welcome to Colchester sign would be more appropriate. Spend the money on improving local services rather than giving it to an overpriced garden company.

Only a fraction of the money was from the Council. Greater Anglia, which is the overpriced profiteering rail company paid a share.
Council money is allocated and has to be spent on the area it is earmarked for. It can't just be used for other purposes.

Council money is allocated and has to be spent on the area it is earmarked for. It can't just be used for other purposes.

I wonder why it wasn’t allocated to filling in potholes then?

Pittcity

Nannylovesshopping

As a Colchester resident, I can assure you the roundabout is hideous, and yes would have much preferred pot holes attended to. Have lived here many years, we are now a city, it would be rude of me to put in print how down the pan Colchester has fallen, the High street is a joke, no decent shops, as in many other high streets, M&S moved to retail park along with Next etc, getting a parking space is unheard of, if you do find one, can take up to an hour to get out, I could go on and on, but am boring myself, and need a large gin!

I live in Colchester and know that there are a lot of expensive White Elephant projects. I totally agree with NLS
Filling potholes is the remit of Essex County Council, who sit in their Chelmsford offices and have probably never set foot in Colchester.
If this roundabout doesn't need mowing or other upkeep it'll be less of an eyesore than many others.
If the OP got information from the Colchester Gazette then they should read some of the other guff that they make up on a daily basis.

Just one more whinge, have a lamppost outside my house, defunct for at least a year, email response, yes we are aware of this, please do not query again!!!

Allira

^its topsoil was replaced to prevent weeds growing^
Our council spent a lot of money planting weed wild flower seeds!

I wonder what these drought-tolerant plants will be? They can't be getting as much rain over that side of the country as we in the West have been getting.

Putting membrane down and planting through it might have been a better idea.

It would have been a much better idea to do that but when did councils do the best ideas? They seem to love anything that costs the most and looks the worst.

Only a fraction of the money was from the Council. Greater Anglia, which is the overpriced profiteering rail company paid a share

Compounding the issue of frittering money away then (this time from the fare-paying public). I bet they’d just prefer the eye wateringly high ticket prices to be reduced!

Why oh why can’t organisations (of any stripe) just get back to basics and Do Them Well?

One of the first political threads that I got involved in on GN back in 2011/12 was one about the austerity cuts the Tory government was making to councils.

It was said then at such an early stage of the cuts that councils would be hard pushed to budget for all the public services it is legally bound to cover, let alone all the other stuff that helps make life more pleasant for its residents.

They have had 14 years worth of savage cuts - leaving many totally bankrupt and in disarray.

This state of affairs will certainly not be resolved very quickly.

Meantime, what fun it is to find fault and continually moan about a situation many voted for and now seem to regret. What short memories we have.

Whitewavemark2

One of the first political threads that I got involved in on GN back in 2011/12 was one about the austerity cuts the Tory government was making to councils.

It was said then at such an early stage of the cuts that councils would be hard pushed to budget for all the public services it is legally bound to cover, let alone all the other stuff that helps make life more pleasant for its residents.

They have had 14 years worth of savage cuts - leaving many totally bankrupt and in disarray.

This state of affairs will certainly not be resolved very quickly.

Meantime, what fun it is to find fault and continually moan about a situation many voted for and now seem to regret. What short memories we have.

👏👏👏👏👏👏

I'm sure the Telegraph was only too aware that the picture was of the beginnings of a "work in progress" there's a lot of real dishonestly in this sort of selective reporting - including now we find the council only contributed to it fractionally.

I think if a town (as mine has) chosen a key site for a landmark project to improve the failing city centres then money is OK to spend - no to all many vanity projects but I dont think this is one of them.

I am a Colchester resident born and bred. In fact I live on the outskirts on a very busy side of the now City. I can walk to Aldi, M&S, Sainsburys and Next. You learn when not to drive to Stane Park.
I am saddened to see the state of our City Centre as do not venture there unless I really have to. It is a shame that the big stores like M&S, Next, Debenhams and many others have chosen to move on( or have ceased trading) but I suppose that is a sign of the times.
As for this roundabout. I very rarely drive that way and I do hope that once it is completed it will be worth the large amount of money that is being used to do this. I personally think the money could have been better spent elsewhere but I am not in charge of funding.