The NHS landowners of Rowlands Dell (adjacent to the Hare & Hounds pub) who have partnered with the local community group Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD) have remarkably secured unprecedented funding to develop the health and wellness project into stage two of three, involving various hard and soft landscaping elements.
Scott Aitchison (NHS PS Senior Manager) said, ‘The project started on 17th September and will run for a period of 8 weeks (weather dependant), with restricted access during this time. The sub-contractor is P R England, designed and managed by NHS partners Groundworks. The project will create a path, seated viewing area, sunken garden, install woodland planting, water feature, bat boxes, bat roost, bee and bug hotels, bird boxes, bins and take steps to limit the spread of Spanish bluebells.
NHS Property Services is funding the installation of this beautiful green space for the benefit of the staff, patients, and community. This funding is provided by the NHS PS Social Prescribing Programme, where investments into green spaces around our properties provide opportunities for ‘green social prescribing’, a way for people to feel the health and wellbeing benefits of nature and provide relaxing spaces for staff and patients too. We have worked in partnership with Friends of Maghull & District CIC and Groundwork to come up with the design to meet the needs of all parties and create an excellent area for all to enjoy.
NHS PS utilises vacant space within its estate for use by Social Prescribing (SP) purposes – we enable charities to provide services such as art classes, mindfulness sessions, counselling, domestic violence support, community cancer support, advice drop-in sessions, carer support groups, dementia cafes, technology support and support completing applications and paperwork’.
Dr Frank Sharp (FOMD) added, ‘we are enormously grateful on behalf of our indebted Maghull community to Scott (pictured) and his team who have been incredible friends to Maghull throughout this process and would like to convey our congratulations on his unsurprising recent promotion to the Notts and Derby NHS Region and also convey a warm welcome to his successor, Phil Meadows (pictured).
The project has been three years in the consultation and planning, resulting in a costing which FOMD initially identified grant funding possibilities and approached the NHS landowners to formally process, only to be overjoyed to learn that the local NHS team had been able to secure a national health and wellness fund which had never been achieved in the north-west area of England and certainly not for such a large amount.
The NHS partners – Groundworks were then involved in consulting and creating designs through their landscape architect Nick Linder (pictured), who then secured Sefton planning permission (2024), and identified PR England (pictured) landscape subcontractors through a competitive tendering process, but could not start stage II until the bird nesting season was completed in September. However, the stage I clearance work was undertaken by the tireless FOMD volunteers over 46 consecutive weekly sessions and removing 262 bin bags of rubbish and 25 tons of debris from every inch of the Dell, which appears to have been used as an open tip for 30 years.
To celebrate the remarkable achievement of completing stage one and the beginning of the exciting hard landscaping of stage two of three, we were honoured to be joined by the Mayor of Maghull – Cllr Ken Hughes. We were delighted that Ken was able to officially help mark the occasion, as he has provided incredible hands-on support throughout the year alongside many other community projects and is a real inspirational credit to his position.
We will provide regular updates throughout the project and we hope to secure further funding and support for the final stage three when we are repopulating the entire Dell with woodland planting to enhance biodiversity’.
Rowlands Dell plans and supporting documentation can be found on the Sefton Council website link:
(Reference DC/2024/00201 Construction of a sunken garden and woodland path to the green space fronting the Health Centre on Westway).
Thank you for your support and patience,
Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD)
Together Making Maghull a better place to live.
More information at: www.fomd.co.uk
Contact: admin@fomd.co.uk
#fomdcic #Maghull #Environment
Nick Linder (Ground Works landscape architect), Cllr Ken Hughes (Mayor of Maghull), Scott Aitchison (outgoing Senior NHS Manager), Phil Meadows (incoming Senior NHS Manager), Richard England (landscaper).
Dr Frank Sharp (FOMD), Phil Meadows (incoming Senior NHS Manager), Cllr Ken Hughes (Mayor of Maghull), (L) Richard England (landscaper) and colleagues.
