Living Pillars for Biodiversity
Living Pillars for Southend-on-Sea Borough Council
The Scotscape Smartscape team has completed the installation of four Living Pillars for Southend-on-Sea Borough Council.
The four Living Pillars consist of a variety of planting blends to support biodiversity in the city centre and bring greenery and colour to the street. Feedback from the trial will be gathered with the potential for further locations to be added in the near future. Living Pillar can be retrofitted on to existing lampposts or in this case be installed as a part of new infrastructure projects, these pillars which feature 3m of planting are created in partnership with lighting specialists CU Phosco Lighting.
Vegetation in the urban landscape brings many benefits to the built environment, not only to mitigate air pollution, but by expanding urban biodiversity, evapo-transpiration cooling effect and noise reduction. There is also a strong argument to be made for a greater inclusion of nature and planting in the urban environment in terms of psychological well-being and placemaking.
Cllr Ron Woodley, deputy leader of Southend-on-Sea Borough Council with responsibility for highways, says: “I am pleased to see the installation of the living lighting pillars. They are both practical but also attractive and bring greenery, biodiversity and colour into what is a largely urban and developed area. We will be seeking feedback on these, with a view to installing them in other location across the town centre.”
Kevin McLeod of Smartscape says ‘it is a pleasure to have undertaken this project and continue to bring Living Pillar to more destinations in the UK – we endeavour to bring maximum biodiversity benefits through our horticultural expertise to every project, to support dwindling urban biodiversity in built up areas’.
For Smartscape Enquiries Contact:
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For Southend-on-Sea Borough Council Contact:
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www.southend.gov.uk
