Central Park, Connah's Quay

Central Park is the second largest area of urban green space in Connah’s Quay.  Previous efforts to enhance the park with trees had been carried out with no community involvement and had been unsuccessful with many of the trees falling victim to vandalism. 

The Treegeneration project’s aim was to engage local residents in an effort to successfully enhance the park with a variety of native trees to improve it’s biodiversity and amenity value.  A local partnership was formed with Connah’s Quay Town Council and local group North East Wales Wildlife (NEWW) was approached to project manage the scheme, as they are well established in the area. 

A draft planting plan was produced by the Treegeneration Project Officer.  Following this, a community consultation exercise was carried out to determine the views of local residents and to ensure Flintshire County Council were aware of the proposals and it’s implications for the Park’s grounds maintenance regime. 

The results of the consultation indicated a number of justifiable concerns relating to certain proposed areas of planting.  These areas were subsequently omitted from the planting proposals.  Overall, however, the consultation exercise indicated a high level of support for the scheme.  NEWW then arranged a week of tree planting events involving local residents, schools and the senior management team from local aircraft wing manufacturer Airbus. 

In total, over 1000 native trees of various sizes were planted in various locations with help from over 200 people including local residents, 5 local schools, a young offenders team, Airbus senior management team, local county councillor Aaron Shotton, Welsh Assembly Member Carl Sargeant and local MP Mark Tami.

Treegeneration continues to support the project through a Friends of Central Park group, which has been set up to monitor the progress of the scheme and to look at other ways in which the park can be improved for the benefit of the local community.