Giveaway of hundreds of huge ‘heritage plants’ in Milton Keynes is environmental success story

A scheme to give away more than 1,500 huge plants that graced an iconic city centre building has been hailed an environmental success by the organisers.

植物生长中庭的撒克逊人法院范围h was once the council’s housing offices and more recently served as a vaccination centre during the Covid pandemic.

MK City Council sold the building to developers and gave them planning permission to build MK Gateway – a mixed-use scheme including ‘vertical village’ blocks of 288 apartments.

One of them will be a towering 33 storeys tall, earning the title of the tallest building in the city centre.

But before building could begin, the atrium needed to be emptied of its magnificent collection of plants that had flourished there since 1980.

Socius, the mixed-use developer behind the MK Gateway site, has been managing a lengthy scheme to help rehome the specimens.

Now everything from a five metre tall Crane flower to smaller shrubs has been found new homes acrossMilton Keyneswith individuals, companies and charities, including Willen Hospice, all stepping forward to become new custodians.

Many of the plants are more than 40 years old and Socius, as sustainably conscious place-makers, were keen to protect and secure the future of them.

Throughout the entire process, the company worked in partnership with Milton Keynes City Council and Tiny Jungle, a biophilic design specialist, to make sure the removal of the plants gave them the best chance in their new locations.

A series of initiatives were launched to donate as many of the plants as possible before work on the iconic former council building commenced and, as preparation work began, including a planned strip out of the site, a few of the final plants remained.

Sean Clegg from Tiny Jungle said: “This project has been two and a half years in the making. The appetite from local people has been amazing, we originally had 1,500 plants and, after several successful workshops with the public and schools, we were down to the last few.”

That’s where new coffee shop, Canal St Coffee, stepped into help. They recently opened their doors in nearby Campbell Wharf and have now taken some of the last plants as part of their ongoing refurbishments.

Mike Verwoert, co-founder of Doe and Fawn Coffee Roastery, and Canal St Coffee, said: “We were delighted to work with Socius and Tiny Jungle to re-home these beautiful plants. Why wouldn’t we want to save them? This is an opportunity to rehome some key parts of Milton Keynes’ green history, and we think these plants will fit in very well at our canal side location.”

Steve Eccles, Director at Socius, said: “We are so proud to have rehomed all of these vitally important legacy plants for Milton Keynes. We estimate that saving these plants has meant we’ve stopped over 2 tonnes of harmful carbon dioxide per plant being created and released into our atmosphere.

“We would like to say thank you to everyone who stepped forward to make that happen.”