Our work
Wirral Waters is marketed as the largest regeneration project in the UK. It’s a 30 year project to breathe new economic life into 300 acres that were once Birkenhead’s thriving docks. Green infrastructure is a key element of the scheme, and The Mersey Forest has been part of the partnership transforming the area since the early days.
We asked researcher and writer Julian Dobson – one of the north’s best-known thinkers about placemaking and sustainability – to visit Wirral Waters and report on what he found and the lessons of the work undertaken so far. The result is this in-depth interactive report, Taking root: How green investment is changing Birkenhead’s docklands.
Julian drew a number of key lessons from the Wirral Waters experience: the importance of a long term committed partnership, the need to design with the landscape (and factor in a changing climate) and the vital importance of working with existing communities in an area undergong change.