School Raingardens in North Lanarkshire

Throughout 2019, North Lanarkshire Council, Central Scotland Green Network Trust and the 10,000 Raingardens for Scotland project have been working on an innovative school raingarden project.

The aim is to install a range of raingarden features within schools that suffer from flooding resulting in their playground being unusable at certain times of the year. Alongside this, an educational programme is being run to teach the pupils about environmental issues such as flooding, pollution and the impacts that urban expansion and development can have on the water cycle. They learn about how these can be reduced through the use of raingardens, and nature-based surface water management interventions, and the advantages that these can have over traditional pipes and drains.

So far, five primary schools have been involved, with concept designs produced for each one. Following discussions with the council, teachers and maintenance staff, some designs will be worked up in to detailed plans and installed in 2020.

Further information on this project is available on the Scottish Green Infrastructure Forum - www.sgif.org.uk/index.php/news-and-events/blog/266-school-raingardens-in-north-lanarkshire

Typical SuDS planter and raingarden

(December 2019)