Green Infrastructure

The planting at Ebbsfleet Garden City needs to work hard to provide vital green infrastructure services. Abundant tree planting will play a key role, providing attractive green leafy routes along all streets, squares and parks, to encourage walking and cycling and social interaction. The benefits of this are multiple, improving safety, physical and mental health, helping to build new communities, and creating wildlife habitat. Benefits of street trees include:

• reducing obesity, and associated diseases, through encouraging an active lifestyle

• reducing asthma and other respiratory diseases, by reducing vehicular journeys and so reducing airborne particulates from vehicles

• reducing airborne particulates from reaching people’s lungs, by trapping them on the street tree’s leaves

• improving mental health, through the positive effects of living in a leafy green environment

• reducing exposure to skin cancer, by providing shade in the summer months

• supporting the development of communities, through providing streets, squares and parks which can function as social meeting spaces

• supporting mental health, through providing streets that encourage people to walk and interact with their neighbours

• supporting children in developing social skills, through providing a safe environment for them to access play and learn how to interact with others

• reducing crime or the fear of crime, through increasing the number of people walking or cycling in the public realm

• increasing biodiversity and creating wildlife habitat

• absorbing carbon dioxide, and providing oxygen

• shading and cooling streets and buildings in the summer, while also supporting solar gain in the winter

• slowing down and absorbing rainwater

Creating a distinctive sense of place

The local area has a rich history and distinctive landscape character, which has been assessed to inform this guide. This rich heritage includes:

• Agricultural history as part of the productive “Garden of England”

• Industrial history, concentrated on chalk quarrying and cement production

• A legacy of amazing landscape character features, notably white chalk cliffs, blue lakes, rivers, valleys and marshes.

These elements provide a rich source of inspiration which can be used to guide the planting design, typologies and palettes, to celebrate the people, places and history of the site, and to create a distinctive new place. A summary of these themes is shown on the following pages.

Ebbsfleet Garden City also benefits from the green image of Garden Cities and their legacy of attractive leafy streets. Given the higher density of housing anticipated at Ebbsfleet Garden City, primarily it is the public realm that will need to deliver the “garden” that has attracted residents and helped build a sense of pride in the previous generations of Garden settlements. Additionally, the legacy of the Garden of England is a rich source of inspiration for the “Edible Ebbsfleet” initiative being developed by the Ebbsfleet Healthy New Town Team. The ambition is to grow productive food crops integrated into the public realm, encouraging residents to get involved, grow, cook and eat fresh healthy food, and get to know their neighbours.

The Garden of England heritage is also inspiration for a distinctive approach to planting which values seasonal change, and the attractive dynamic of changing features of various vegetation. The wildflower meadows that you find growing in traditional Kent orchards, provide inspiration for a loose-textured, soft and naturalistic look, with vibrant and changing colour. This can be delivered with Pictorial Meadows and other Pictorial planting approaches to create a memorable and imageable landscape.

This Planting Strategy sets out examples of how inspiration can be derived from this unique site, and shows examples of how it can be applied to planting to create a 21st Century Garden City.

Planting Narratives:

Chalk, water and industry

Planting colour palettes and design principles should be derived from the landscape character ( Section 2 ) to enhance the qualities of the existing landscape character.

Planting Narratives:

Garden of England

Planting colour palettes and design principles should be derived from the landscape character ( Section 2 ) to enhance the qualities of the existing landscape character.

Planting Design Principles:

Based upon the Healthy Streets Evaluation Framework indicators identified in Section 3, the planting design should aim to reveal and emphasise the existing sense of place while also accommodating the following design principles:

1. STREETS PLENTIFUL IN TREES

The streetscapes of Ebbsfleet Garden City should bring the garden into the city through the plentiful planting of street trees and spectacular garden verges.

2. ENHANCE LOCAL BIODIVERSITY

The planting design should aim to enhance the local biodiversity and the overall ecological health of Ebbsfleet Garden City in line with the evaluation framework.

3. RESPOND TO THE ENVIRONMENTAL CONTEXT

All planting should be designed to suit site conditions, to ensure its long term success. Critical aspects to account for include: soil quality & permeability, local microclimate conditions, and sustainable maintenance requirements.

4. DYNAMIC YEAR ROUND QUALITIES

The planting design should provide changing year round qualities and the attractive dynamic of changing features such as blossom, fruit, berries, autumn leaf colour, distinctive twig colour, or exfoliating bark.

5. INTEGRATE EDIBLE PLANTS

Kent’s role as the Garden of England should be actively promoted through the integration of growing spaces in the parks (e.g. orchard trees, hops trellis). Collectively, the public realm should form a series of productive landscapes that provides food for local residents and links to Ebbsfleet’s agricultural legacy.

6. NATURALISTIC PLANTING STYLE

The planting design should promote a naturalistic planting aesthetic inspired by the existing landscape character areas and pictorial planting approach. This planting style fits with the ambition to sustainably manage surface water runoff and enhance the local biodiversity.

7. ACCOMMODATE WATER FLUCTUATION

The planting design should accommodate and facilitate water fluctuation within the public realm through the specification of ‘rain garden’ plant species.

Planting in Local Parks