We are please to be able to introduce you to a map with a difference – Birmingham’s Greenground map, and to try it out we asked one of our team to see what she thought of it. Hayat has joined us as a Kick Start placement – and she is doing a great job sharing information about parks and green spaces from her own point of view. Here is her Blog:
Hi, I’m Hayat the communications support officer for the Future Parks Accelerator Project. On 7th January I tested out the Greenground map for Birmingham.
The green ground map is the first official map in Birmingham to map the entire city not with streets, areas and postcodes but with parks, canals, waterways, nature reserves and walkways. It was designed by Helen Ilus.
Initially, the plan was to visit 6 parks, but one wasn’t open (Soho House & Garden). In the end I visited 5 parks: Burbury Park, Georges Park, Yellow Park, Philips Street Park and Mansfield Green. I’m very lucky to live in such a close proximity to so many parks. I used the GG map to plan my journey and google maps to reach the parks.
The green ground map is very useful it even has the distance between parks in miles, so you know if it’s within walking distance. It has symbols of the things available in the parks I presume to be perfect when planning a trip with others so you can see that there are activities for everyone to enjoy. The colours of the lines indicate what the route is, for example, orange is for the city centre cultural route.
I decided to rank the parks that I had visited based on their facilities and size. Georges Park came first place as It had a skate park and a 1-mile path marker, it was a decent size too will definitely be visiting it more often 9/10. Second place was Mansfield Green because it had its own outdoor gym and I thought that was useful it had a 50m walking path too and there was a small play area for children. 7/10. Would I visit again? Maybe if it was summer and I wanted to use the outdoor gym. Yellow Park was my third favourite, it was one of my childhood parks it will always have a special place in my heart, and it has a zipwire so 6.5/10. Philips park and Burbury Park were both tied but Burbury Park wins because it has a basketball court.
Conclusively, the green ground map was efficient, convenient and simple to use. I hadn’t been aware of the number of parks just a short walk from my house. There are photos of all the parks I visited. Will definitely be using the green ground map again. A great and free way to have a fun day out with friends and family.
You can download a copy of the Greenground Map or request a paper version to be posted to you. Please visit our Greenground Map page: https://naturallybirmingham.org/birminghams-greenground-map/
Naturally Birmingham Future Parks Project 