Littledown Greenway Bournemouth
Published 15 July 2025
The Project
300 hectares, 9 different land managers, 1 shared goal – to connect and manage the greenspaces better for nature and the community.
The Littledown Greenway represents a great opportunity to link existing greenspaces and to engage land managers in improved practices. It’s an ecologically important project, linking the Stour Valley into Bournemouth and beyond, enabling people and wildlife to travel between the countryside and the urban area.
This is a project in its infancy, where an opportunity to make an impact has been identified and now further funding will be sought to continue the work. Some great progress has been made too.
Early wins
A schools greening project at the three schools within the greenway has included the planting of 1km of native hedging! At one of those schools, St Peters Primary, a wildlife pond was installed and planted by students during school time. During the February 2025 half term break 100m or 450 native whips were planted for hedging with the help of students, parents and staff (45 attendees).
Tregonwell and Avonbourne schools have had land management plans drawn up, which include tree planting, relaxed mowing regimes and pond creation.
BCP Parks Operations teams, the BH Live team and The Parks Foundation have worked together to discuss longer term management of the greenspace at Littledown Park (image above), resulting in them adopting a reduced mowing regime with cut and collect.
A promising future
We’ve spoken with the majority of the landowners and managers in the greenway. Everyone is on board with improving the land they manage and is supportive of BCP’s Nature Pledge.
The J.P. Morgan site at Chaseside is notable for the good practice that is already happening – with hedgehog release work, wildflower meadows planted, veteran oaks being looking after, nature activities, and active volunteering by employees across the BCP region.
Littledown Valley is managed by the council in a very nature positive way, and the teams at Bournemouth Hospital and Iford Golf Centre are committed to improving their grounds for the community and nature.
As resources allow, the council and The Parks Foundation will continue working on this greenway to improve connections for nature as well as the thousands of people each year who use this busy corridor to travel to work, visit the hospital, the Vitality Stadium or to access the Stour Valley and beyond.
The map above is borrowed from the Stour Valley strategy document
Project details
Budget TBC
Funding TBC
Project Lead BCP Council Parks Projects team with The Parks Foundation
T. 01202 123123
E. greenspaces@bcpcouncil.gov.uk
The Parks Foundation
We work with The Parks Foundation, an independent charity, on nature-based community-building projects & events in many BCP parks and green spaces.
