Round Hill Bus Stop Pocket Park
POCKET PARK INSTALLED 11th - 16th APRIL 2025.
Dominic Furlong of Round Hill Green Spaces writes:
"Five-and-a half-years in the planning, a Round Hill 'pocket park' is being installed alongside the southbound bus stop on Ditchling Road by the Wood Store team. It will consist of four wooden planters. The container soil mix (165 bags) was delivered on Wednesday, 16 April. Plants and flowers to follow soon after."
Illustration by Peter Gates
Early this spring will see the installation of the long-awaited Round Hill Bus Stop Pocket Park. Funding was secured from a range of sources – most notably the UK Shared Prosperity Fund - in Autumn 2024. The pocket park, consisting of four wooden planters with a mixture of suitable perennial plants and bulbs, will be situated alongside the southbound bus stop at the junction of Ditchling Road and Prince's Crescent. The pocket park will also eventually include a new community noticeboard and a "Welcome to Round Hill" sign.
Planning permission
The proposal to create a pocket park public garden on the pedestrian walkway at the junction of Ditchling Road and Princes Crescent was granted planning permission on 6th July 2023.
Read the Proposal: 19-page illustrated PDF
Please click here to view the planning decision and approved drawings on the Council's website.
Volunteers needed
Dominic of Round Hill Green Spaces writes:
"We would like to set up a regular volunteer group to maintain the planters as a social activity. We've been working on this since 2018/19 and previously collected details of people interested in helping us to plant, manage and maintain the planters along with the ones already installed at both ends of Round Hill Crescent. It's been such a long time we thought we should start again on that, so If you are a Round Hill resident and you'd like to get involved, please let us know via The Round Hill Community Noticeboard Facebook Group.
We don't need regular commitment, just a willingness to help with whatever needs doing when you have time. We plan to meet regularly to plant/weed/water/litter pick/deal with any graffiti (though our planters will have anti-graf coating).
Council officers have concluded that the design and modest scale of the planters are unlikely to encourage any increase in anti-social behaviour. However, we hope that the volunteer group and ALL interested neighbours will help us to keep an eye on the planters, sharing any incidents on the Round Hill Community Noticeboard and reporting to the Police if necessary. Hopefully we can get our new PCSO sophie.powell@sussex.police.uk involved too.
It would be great to have a core of volunteers, but when we eventually arrange work sessions, we'd like to invite anyone and everyone of all ages/abilities to help - and if you'd like to sit and watch and chat you'll be very welcome.
Keep your eyes peeled for further announcements about pocket park dates and volunteer activities on the Round Hill Community Noticeboard on Facebook."
Background (March 2022)
Round Hill Green Spaces has been lobbying the council for several years for permission to site planters on the pavement around the southbound bus stop (Ditchling Rd/Princes Cres junction). We were given the go-ahead, then told we had to apply for planning permission, which was finally granted on 6th July 2023.
The man from the council he said 'Yes' (but...)!
In December 2021, we reported on the slowly turning wheels of our project to make Round Hill a little greener and more pedestrian-friendly, with the first step being a 'pocket park' at the southbound bus stop in Ditchling Road. But now we have lots of good news to greet the Spring.
On 20 January 2022 we hosted a visit from Mark Prior, the Assistant Director of Transport and two other senior members of the transport team. Two of our councillors, Pete West and Sue Shanks, came along to lend us support, as did another councillor, Steve Davis, who co-chairs the council’s Environment committee. You might have seen this crocodile of officialdom, and the three of us, wending our way from the bus stop to the bollards at the Richmond/Mayo junction.
And the outcome? We’re delighted to say that Mark gave his agreement to our pocket park plans for the bus stop.
Of course, it’s not as simple as that and there are now lots of questions and actions needed before we can go ahead liaising with other teams such as Arboriculture; confirming if we need planning permission; and getting a license to define the location and what we’re allowed to do. But essentially this is “Go” and everyone we’ve encountered has been very supportive. Let’s hope it doesn’t take too long.
We’re excited that Brighton Buses and Clear Channel are also on-side with the idea of incorporating a bus shelter with a living, beefriendly roof and Brighton Buses will give us £1,500 towards our costs.
Our councillors Pete and Sue have each pledged £500 from their ward funding and we may be able to get some council funding that’s specifically for pocket parks. We’re also now going to get on and fundraise from other sources.
Round Hill Green Spaces
We are Dominic Furlong, Jane Power and Kate Rice.
This page was last updated by Ted on 20-Apr-2025