Rough Hill roundabout and Dodleston hare trail
Brief: To visually improve the lifeless roundabout space and engage the local community
Forest were approached by our client Meadow Foods, introduced to us by Dodleston Parish Council.
After meeting with Meadow Foods we immediately understood their commitment as a company to sustainability and green practice within the company, it was a good fit and we were all excited to make something great happen here. Meadow were keen to do something that involved the local community and had a budget ready for us to work with.
Concept design
Forest went away and came up with a concept to present. We used ‘meadow’ because the local area is largely farmland, there are issues in Cheshire where 99% of wildlfower meadow has been lost.
The giant hare idea was chosen as we discovered that brown hares – an iconic British meadow species were present in the area after a chance encounter in which Sam – our creative director managed to photograph them.
Hares are an inspiring sight, it seemed to be a great fit for an icon to represent all meadow species. The concept session resulted in a giant hare sculpture leaping over a beautiful biodiverse wildflower meadow.
Making it happen
After creating a design and visual mockup of the finished site we presented the ideas to the local authority CWaC.
Forest then secured additional funding support to enable greater impact.
Due to our thorough approach we were able to gain agreement to proceed quickly. working with multiple departments to gain signoff on the proposed works and traffic management. Install was scheduled and we began the process. The hare and wildflower meadow was successfully installed on march 25th 2021 after being project managed by Forest City Projects CIC.
The hare trail - inspiring knowledge abut nature in the community
What we did
Partnered with Cheshire Wildlife Trust and RECORD – the local environmental
records office, to provide info about local species and conservation.
Oversaw the design and Distribution of 500 information leaflets in the community containing this information AND free wildflower seeds. (funded by Meadow Foods)
Set up ‘Dodleston Naturewatch’ facebook group for the community to learn about, chat and record wildlife
Inspired residents to be part of a citizen science project with RECORD using iNaturalist.
Bought the village it’s own wildlife camera trap to be shared in the community.
Encouraged people to build their own hare sculpture and display it as a mark of support for wildlife.
Set up build-a-hare workshops with the artist Russell Kirk.
For many years Meadow Foods had hoped to find a way to improve the roundabout at Rough Hill outside our main entrance, whilst also positively contributing to the local community. Forest City Projects were recommended to Meadow Foods through Dodleston Parish Council, with a mutual aim of engaging the local community around protecting and caring for the environment. Meadow Foods were delighted to be in the hands of those with the knowledge, expertise and enthusiasm for the project. Forest City Projects were able to produce a design concept, achieve agreement and sign off, prepare the project timeline and deliver the implementation, all in the space of under a year.
