New Woodlands appear in Amesbury - Solstice Park Goes Green
24 March 2005

Solstice Park has announced the completion of a major conservation and infrastructure planting project at its business park on the outskirts of Amesbury, the cost of which was in excess of £600,000. Forming the framework to the park and its associated road network, this environmentally beneficial project is the largest of its type to have been undertaken locally in recent years.

Species native to Wiltshire have been selected and the scheme has included the planting of over 5,000 beech and ash trees around the park along with over 30,000 hazel and cherry trees which have already begun to soften the visual impact of the park, enhancing the aesthetic qualities of the rolling Wiltshire countryside that it lies in. The contractors involved - English Landscapes - have paid particular attention to the grouping of beech trees around the park in order to recreate the clumps typically found on and around Salisbury plain.

Formerly an intensely farmed arable field with a notable lack of natural flora and fauna, the site has already begun to benefit from nearly 30 acres of landscaped parkland; indeed buzzards, hares, deer, partridge and even hawks have begun to colonise the area once more. The employees at Solstice Park will be encouraged to make use of the grassed and wooded perimeter of the park in order to benefit from these recreational areas from a health and fitness perspective.

Tom Swope, the landscaping consultant appointed by specialists RPS, said he was impressed by the developer's desire to make the park attractive adding that "The funding has met the needs of what our designers wanted to achieve and we have been fully supported by the developers in making Solstice Park an attractive place to work." Tom went on to say "the planting will enhance Solstice Park through the course of its development and will help to screen those parts of it that people may not wish to see."

Totalling 160 acres in all, Solstice Park is set to become one of the largest high quality mixed-use business parks in the South and has received widespread admiration due to the environmental awareness inherent in its design. This latest planting is just one example of the steps that have been taken to minimise the ecological impact of the £250m development on the surrounding countryside and residential areas. This type of environmental concern allied to its attractive location has provoked a huge amount of interest in the park from local companies, keen to flee the cramped and congested nature of their overcrowded industrial sites.