The Green Roof Project at Saxon Court

Wallbarn is proud to support the YMCA educational green space project.

The Green Roof Project at Saxon Court demonstrates the flexibility of M-Tray® modular green roof system for green infrastructure in urban areas. Wallbarn has also made a sizeable donation to help support a long term development and educational programme for tomorrow’s green infrastructure professionals.

This Project is designed to educate the public about the environmental, financial and wellbeing benefits of installing a green roof and the potential green spaces available in the built environment, but crucially is also a live training educational project for young people to develop their commercial and creative skills and become green roof technicians of the future.

Wallbarn has teamed up with leading green roof installer Bridgman & Bridgman and the YMCA in Milton Keynes to help provide a base for YMCA residents and young people often from challenging backgrounds and those with special educational needs as part of an approved mentoring and training scheme for young people to gain real life experience and professional qualifications in the growing green infrastructure sector.

This Project is about more than turning a grey roof green. It is an example of improving the environment and also creating green jobs and training opportunities. Since the project was started at Saxon Court in July 2021, they have had the pleasure of training 3 residents from the YMCA Milton Keynes in how to install green roofs.
The green roof market is expanding rapidly in the UK and we need to ensure that there is a new generation of green roof installers ready to support our industry. More students are being taken onto the scheme.

For the students the roof space is “their space” as they learn how to install and nurture a range of different green roof types; they grow their own vegetables; keep bees in hives; and they use the space for leisure and recreation. A number of events and small concerts have taken place on the roof space and it is fast developing a reputation as the pace to be in Milton Keynes for emerging creative talent.

The benefit of using M-Tray® will become more evident for the students in the coming weeks. The entire green space on the existing Saxon Court council building will be removed and re-installed in the new permanent YMCA premises.

The move is due in March 2020. M-Tray® will demonstrate its advantages overt roll-out systems as each module can be easily lifted and packed onto pallets ready for the move to its new home.

This new premises will accommodate 200+ residents (aged between 18 and 34) so as well as the students who will continue to work and train in the programme; the new green roof space will become part of their home and free for them to use as a garden in the sky.

Central Milton Keynes (CMK) currently has the equivalent of 6 full size football pitches that could be retrofitted as a green roof. They hope that by using the YMCA as an example, we can persuade other local buildings to follow them and join the green roof revolution. The YMCA Milton Keynes is ideally situated to inspire visitors, standing at 8 stories, with great views over Central Milton Keynes. We hope to build a viewing area that will help people to visualise the potential for retrofitting CMK buildings with green roofs, helping Milton Keynes to reach its target of being carbon negative by 2050.