Installed at the hospital as part of the Gloucester and Cheltenham Waterscapes project, run by Gloucestershire Wildlife Trust (GWT) and funded by RSA Insurance, the rain garden is bringing biodiversity and natural flood management to a previously unloved area outside the Accident and Emergency department.
A large, raised planter surrounded by a curved wooden bench, the new hospital rain garden can capture a staggering 800 litres of water. As seen all too often across Gloucestershire, surface-water flooding can bring chaos to communities and have dramatic impacts on wildlife when the water from flash-flooding eventually enters our rivers. Sustainable urban drainage features, such as rain gardens, green verges and green-roofed bus stops, can reduce some of this flash flooding, by holding back water, cleaning it, then releasing it slowly back into our watercourses.
A whopping 15,000 homes in Gloucester and 8,500 homes in Cheltenham are potentially vulnerable to flooding each year. We’ve seen the devastating impact flooding causes across the county already in 2024, and with climate change continuing to cause unpredictable weather, it looks like this will only continue.