Valley Gardens

The sense of both “Valley” and “Gardens” had become lost from Valley Gardens in the heart of Brighton, so proposals aimed to reinstate both, by reconsidering the site’s developmental history, from seasonally inundated commons, to promenading gardens. The design has been developed as a “linked park system”, with a series of integrated landscape layers, from highways to parks, hard to soft, roads to paths to lawns to gardens, coordinated into a new network of mutual relationships, where the formerly traffic-dominated and polluted environment has been transformed into a rebalanced, democratic and fully accessible public space for the use and enjoyment of all.

The parks’ potential has been unlocked by unpicking the tangled spaghetti of traffic gyratories and contraflows through Valley Gardens to achieve a 25% reduction in road area and a 33% increase in parks and public realm. This improves access to the parks from the city’s commercial centre and North Laine district. A new dedicated cycle lane has been threaded through the parks’ east side, connecting The Level with the Old Steine and seafront beyond.

A new setting has been created for St Peter’s Church by reducing and relocating its car park to the rear and forming a tree-lined square to the front. A new extended lawn to the foreground of the church replaces the Richmond Place crossover, and a second new public space, Richmond Square, has been created between St Peter’s and Victoria Gardens.

Alongside extensive new tree planting to support climate change impact mitigation, site-wide soil restoration and installation of high-performance lawns, we designed a 650m long richly biodiverse “river of flowers” perennial garden, realised with thanks to specialist support from Professor Nigel Dunnett of Sheffield University, who ensured both a high impact but low maintenance approach that was acceptable to BHCC’s Parks team in a context of diminishing resources.

Valley Gardens is a public sector project, commissioned and delivered by Brighton & Hove City Council (BHCC) with funding from the Department for Transport, through the Coast to Capital LEP (Local Enterprise Partnership). The project has progressed through two significant changes in administration, its significance and value to the city illustrated by broadly cross-party support.

A decade in the making, we were appointed alongside Urban Movement in early 2012 to prepare concept designs for the whole site from The Level to the Old Steine, leading to initial developed designs in early 2015 of the core area of St Peter’s Church and Victoria Gardens North & South, Untitled Practice then progressed the developed design with highways engineers Project Centre, to secure planning permission in late 2017. The project started on site in 2018, with completion in 2020.

The site existed as an undeveloped open space in the middle of the city because of its topography, lying at the confluence of two valleys in the watershed between the Downs and the sea. These valleys frame the main routes into central Brighton, the A23 London Road (and mainline railway), and the A270 Lewes Road, which converge at Valley Gardens on their way to the seafront (at Brighton Palace Pier).

The Gardens lie to the east of the Old Town, which represented the extent of the city’s development until the mid-18th century. Historic images show it as a marginal zone, a public common, used for grazing and drying laundry. This was a consequence of the site’s seasonal inundation by a winterbourne stream, the Wellesbourne, which created boggy ground conditions in the valley floor, precluding building development. By the time the stream was culverted as part of Brighton’s sewer system in 1874, the varied pattern of building frontages onto the open space was established, alongside the Gardens’ use for promenading.

The site covers most of the Valley Gardens Conservation Area, which includes John Nash’s famous Grade I listed Royal Pavilion. The Pavilion Gardens and Grade II listed North Gate define the southern extent of the project site adjacent to Victoria Gardens South. Charles Barry’s Grade II* listed St Peter’s Church defines the north end of the site, sited between Victoria Gardens and The Level, where the London and Lewes Roads converge.

In 2014, Brighton became one of the world’s first UNESCO Urban Biosphere Reserves, and the first completely new Biosphere in the UK for nearly 40 years. Valley Gardens lies strategically central within the urban “transition area” of the Brighton & Lewes Downs Biosphere – known as “The Living Coast” – between the Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSIs) of the South Downs National Park and the Marine.

A comprehensive soil restoration strategy was developed with soil scientists Tim O’Hare Associates to address soil health and concerns regarding carbon loss associated with exposed soils. Over time, the existing amenity grassland had been unable to recover from damage caused by successive large-scale events, leaving extensive areas of highly compacted bare soils unable to drain. High performance lawns areas have been created following comprehensive decompaction to loosen and aerate soils with the application of a washed sand blinding layer, improving drainage and increasing wear tolerance. A rhizomatous tall fescue (RTF) turf grass mix was selected for its deep-rooting drought and wear tolerance and resilience to the maritime climate.

By improving site wide infiltration and designing falls to footpaths and cycleways to facilitate surface water drainage via vegetated zones within park areas, or to tree pits within the public realm, the project manages water effectively within the shallow gradients of the valley floor, which average 1:200 longitudinal falls.

Resilience planning for the National Elm Collection has resulted in a legacy planting of 46 young elms from seven different species distributed throughout the spatial corridor, preparing for the eventual decline of veteran trees. Replacement specimens such as English, Field, Jersey, Cornish and Wych Elm, are augmented with a proportionately greater number of disease resistant New Horizon and Columella elms.

In total, 140 new trees have been installed, selected for their tolerance to the maritime and site conditions, to the Conservation Zone along the English Channel.

Encouraging active and sustainable travel choices that cut carbon and other emissions is at the heart of the project, and has been realised through the provision of legible, generous walking and cycling routes alongside the rationalisation of the road layout. This included removing on-street parking to discourage casual car journeys and reducing general car access to the west of Valley Gardens to promote and incentivize the use of public and sustainable modes of transport over private car use.

The carriageway reduction achieved has enabled ‘grey to green’ land reallocation to expand park and public realm areas by a third, which has provided the opportunity to develop more consistent, better connected green infrastructure, increasing habitat and biodiversity benefits. As part of our wider strategy, new street trees have been planted wherever possible to shade surfaces and reduce the urban heat island effect, alongside the use of light-coloured materials, such as locally sourced bound gravels, that help to reduce surface heat absorption and latent release.

urban stresses of reflected heat and light, and for their predicted performance in climate adaptation, contribution to biodiversity, air quality, and carbon sequestration. These include: maidenhair, field maple, holly, and ornamental pear; “arboretum” species such as fastigiate beech, “Great White Cherry”, Persian ironwood, Indian chestnut, swamp cypress, yellow buckeye and Austrian pine; Yoshino and hybrid Schmitti flowering Japanese cherry.

The pandemic has provided an opportunity to re-evaluate the critical role of external spaces in supporting our everyday lives – placing emphasis on the relationship between humans, space and nature. Healthy places deliver ecological services that underpin the triple bottom line benefits of green infrastructure (GI). In our view, virtually everything and everybody benefits from GI approaches, and that we believe the Gross Natural Product provides a significant indicator of a civil society.

Valley Gardens opened incrementally to the public through 2020, offering a renewed resource to Brighton as it emerged from the first lockdown. Still snagging, we watched with interest as people inhabited the new park spaces with awareness of social distancing. The new design configuration makes more space for everything, except cars. Being generous with space allocation was supporting people to move safely and comfortably. Wider footways next to businesses and two new public squares facilitate flexible use for socially distanced street trading while maintaining pedestrian movements. In time, when it is safe to do so, they will also contribute to the city’s vibrant events programme.

The new lawn areas are framed by extensive tree planting, species-rich meadow fringes and the seasonally shifting, sometimes immersive perennial gardens (approx. 3,800 m 2 ). In its first season, we witnessed this being visited by a mesmerising number of foraging pollinators, attracting a lot of attention from park users whose responses ranged from meditative states to animated conversations. The impact of the perennial gardens for biodiversity net gain and people’s enjoyment has been almost immediate. The ecological services provided by other aspects of the natural environment, such as the 140 new trees, will amplify over time, improving air quality and water management, and contributing to carbon capture and habitat value as they develop.

Untitled Practice is a landscape and architecture practice, specialising in public realm environments where complex infrastructure needs to be reimagined, to meet the changing needs of people and nature. UP’s reputation is founded in their collaborative engagement-based approach, which prioritises climate and social justice through landscape.