Biggest new park in a generation
Little France Park is the city’s newest park reclaiming unmanaged grassland for the local community and carving out a green corridor from the city centre to Midlothian. It will establish a new corridor for wildlife whilst offering a network of paths, cycleways spread across 45 hectares.
Active ambitions
Creating a network of paths and travel routes is key to the plans for the park and will connect routes in the South east of Edinburgh. The new paths cross boundaries between two local authorities and link surrounding communities to one of Edinburgh’s largest employment hubs, the Edinburgh Bio Quarter which has over 7000 people working in Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, the Edinburgh University Medical School and a range of life sciences companies.
The active travel route also links Little France Park to Craigmillar Castle Park and the Wisp providing an excellent local amenity. This project is an excellent example of where development of an ambitious active travel route can achieve a whole range of outcomes, in the area of transport connectivity, public health, environmental improvement and in providing links between areas of social disadvantage and opportunities for employment.
Nature in your neighbourhood
The Park is being designed and managed to bring nature into the heart of the city, creating homes for wildlife and places for people to enjoy. The open mosaic of woodland and grassland is unique in the city and provides a great opportunity for people to explore wildflower meadows and watch kestrels hunting. Throughout this work consideration has been given to maintain and enhance existing views to Craigmillar Castle, Edinburgh Castle and Arthur’s Seat. The local community have already taken part in planting over 7000 new trees in Little France Park for woodland creation which involved 239 volunteers. Meadow creation has been planned in the grassland areas which involves bringing in the local community and schools as in part of the Edinburgh Living Landscape project.
Investing in the city’s future
The development of Little France Park and active travel route is led by the Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust on behalf of the City of Edinburgh Council.
More than 200 different species of wildlife including locally rare butterflies have been found in Edinburgh’s newest park. Experts joined forces with local citizen scientists this summer to search for…
Local residents Sarah Ford-Hutchinson and Barrie Williams have created a film exploring Little France Park in Edinburgh. This is the city’s newest park and, covering 45 hectares, it is the largest…
A week of activities is taking place in Little France Park from 17 – 21 June to celebrate its value for wildlife and collect new biological records.There are a number of…
Edinburgh & Lothians Greenspace Trust (ELGT) have enlisted the help of local school children to help officially open the new active travel route through Little France Park. The local children came…
