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The HISTORY of REDDITCH New Town

The Making of a Green Town

Redditch is generally known as ‘The Green Town'. The man chiefly responsible for the
town's green-ness is Roy Winter, RIBA, MLI. Hon RBSA. Roy has received a number of
awards for his work in the town, and in 2004 he received the Landscape Institutes Midland
Region prize for the most influential landscape over the last 25 years! The following is
taken from an interview with Roy Winter by Anne Bradford from her book, “Old Redditch
Voices.”

‘It's now thirty years since I finished landscaping Redditch New
Town. All the planting – all the trees, shrubs and flowers for
all the new development were designed and implemented by
me, together with my team of Landscape Architects.

In 1964 I got a job as Chief Landscape Architect for Redditch
New Town, by which time I had qualified in Landscape
Architecture. I was given the job of landscaping the whole of
the new town. I had to work with engineers, architects, estate
officers, social development officers and all the other disciplines
employed in the new town. I likened it at one stage to providing
a new suit of clothes for a new town.
At that time I was living in a very modern house in
Kingswinford with my wife and nine-month old baby daughter
and the journey was horrendous, it took about an hour to get
here. We looked round for a property to buy and found a
virtually derelict Queen Anne cottage on the outskirts of the
town.’

‘I wanted to make Redditch a decent place to live in. One of
the major concepts of the new town was to respect the topography, and to that end we
decided that we should only build on
lower-lying land and leave the higher
ground for open space or woodland, so
that the view across Redditch would be a
green one. This was very successful
during the life of the Development
Corporation but it has now been rather
transgressed by newer development
promoted by the Redditch Borough
Council and so the integrity of that
concept has to some extent been lost.

We also wanted to make sure that
everybody who lived in Redditch had
immediate access to a feeling of the
countryside, with its trees, shrubs and Landscaped footpath reflects the woodland
water courses, and that they wouldn't live
environment. Most woodland areas are
in a very hard, urban structure but in a
green and pleasant place. I think that by accessible to the public for quiet recreational
enjoyment.
and large, that has been successful.’

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