Runcorn Wildwood

A recent journey through Runcorn, where I used to go walking with friends. The long roads were landscaped 30 or 40 years ago and many of the trees are now mature. The autumn colour on the chestnuts and especially the beech and maple were astonishing; it has been a good year for colour. Extending the urban wildwood idea, I was reminded of the alternative routes across this 'new town' landscape. Runcorn New Town seemed to be criss-crossed by a series of unofficial paths between the bus routes and walkways that residents had made to make their lives easier; short cuts. They were used by all ages and it was not surprising to see a pensioner slip out of the bushes with her shopping. Once past the boundary hedges, the undergrowth was often surprisingly thin and the spaces under the trees were open - and so safe. These paths extended across the whole new town landscape, or seemed to. They made the town seem imposed on older patterns of landscape and land use, and also indicated the futility of town planning that ignored residents' needs and usage. We often followed them at night and slipped past houses and bus lanes and through business parks and small industrial estates, a linked network of paths. More about this if I get to visit Runcorn again. My only other observation was the creep of new business parks and houses out towards Daresbury; when I walked there it was fields.