Silkstream Park and Montrose Playing Fields | Jon Sheaff & Associates

Colindale is one Barnet’s major regeneration areas and will experience a significant increase in population over the next 15 years. Silkstream Park is the main greenspace for local people, but the park was unsafe, under-used and plagued with issues of crime and anti-social behaviour. The objective of the refurbishment project was to create a vibrant, successful greenspace that would serve the needs of existing and new communities.

We worked closely with these communities to understand their aspirations for Silkstream Park and captured these in the emerging design. We developed a natural capital account that quantified the value of ecosystem services flowing from the park. Using this methodology, we were able to establish that the cost to the NHS of inactivity in Colindale would rise from £1m annually to £1.8 in 2040 by virtue of the increase in population. We were able to use these metrics to bring in additional funding to encourage residents to move from inactivity to activity. We also used natural capital metrics to address the consequences of climate change and secured additional funding from the Environment Agency and the Greater London Authority to provide attenuation in the valley of the Silkstream (to address local flooding issues) and to increase canopy cover by planting 290 new trees, addressing carbon, urban warming and air quality impacts.

The new park includes two new playgrounds, a community hub building, extensive new facilities for sports a new skate park, riparian ecological interventions and meadows and is fully integrated into the Borough’s walking and cycling network.

Silkstream Park opened just after the lifting of the first Covid lockdown. The contribution made by the park to the physical (and particularly) mental health and wellbeing of local residents through the provision of safe access to the natural cannot be under-estimated. It is likely that the value of this benefit outstripped the capital cost of the work within the first year of public use.