Building Gardens In The Sky

The Green Roof Project has just finished a six month ‘meanwhile project’ to showcase a green roof Live Lab on the roof of Saxon Court in Milton Keynes. As part of the project we have trained three residents from the YMCA Milton Keynes in green roofing. As this part of the project draws to an end, as a legacy, we are relocating the green roof to the YMCA building. 

We want the 200+ residents (aged between 18 and 34) to enjoy all the benefits of having a living roof. This will include: growing vegetables, keeping bees, learning about biodiversity, and training in new green industries. Central Milton Keynes (CMK) currently has the equivalent of six full-size football pitches that could be retrofitted with a green roof. We hope that by using the YMCA to demonstrate green roof potential, 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, with great views over CMK, and we hope to build a viewing area that will enable people to visualise the potential for retrofitting CMK buildings with green roofs.

Its Aims

The Green Roof Project on Saxon Court demonstrates the potential of green infrastructure in urban areas.

Saxon Court is at the heart of Milton Keynes, a town that aims to become carbon neutral by 2030 and carbon negative by 2050.

Green roofs are part of the solution, they reduce flood risk, improve insulation and reduce energy consumption; they capture carbon and they support biodiversity alongside improving health and wellbeing.

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.

To find out more, please visit – https://www.greenroofproject.co.uk/