Coming soon – a new place for a walk!

CovSoc member, Mary Courtney, gives us a report on a CovSoc tour of Segro Park on 12^th June 2023. Mary writes…..

Segro Park, a large wildlife area (miles of it) near Baginton Airport will be opening soon.

There isn’t a date yet, but it is supposed to be finished “by the end of the summer”. When it opens to the public it is going to be a real gift to the city for access to nearby big countryside spaces. The visit to Segro Park with the Coventry Society today was for a walk about preview. It will be free to get in. Has miles of cinder-type paths, five lakes and 31 man-made ponds, particularly for newts, established woodland and grassy banks and new planting of trees. There are still paths to be constructed, so we walked through some muddy areas. And some of the ponds looked muddy or with black undercovering visible as they haven’t been established yet. It’s still a work in progress. After a few minutes no traffic was audible.

Some of the land was unlicenced and licenced landfill as well as old slurry pits from the sewage works. The material from this has been sorted and filtered and the contaminated heavy metal stuff clad in cement and returned so it can be inert in the earth, covered in topsoil and planting. It really felt like a wonderful oasis and the birds are giving it a thumbs up. Plenty of geese and swans staking their claim already. According to my step count on the phone I walked over 3 miles of paths. There were more but my knee is still dodgy so I opted for a minibus back at that point. The photos don’t do the scale of it justice. There are miles of space. It is a real gem for Coventry and the surrounding area. Definitely something to look out for and look forward to.

Thanks to Mick from the Buckingham Group for organising the visit and Segro for permitting us to visit. I cycled there. It is very accessible for a trip from Coventry. Hot muggy day not the best for photos. It looks way better in the flesh.