National garden festival

UK events of the 1980s–90s

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An overhead view of the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival site.

The national garden festivals were part of the cultural regeneration of large areas of derelict land in Britain's industrial districts during the 1980s and early 1990s. Five were held in total - one every two years, each in a different town or city - after the idea was pushed by the Conservative environment secretary Michael Heseltine in 1980. They were based on the German post-war Bundesgartenschau concept for reclaiming large areas of derelict land in cities, and cost from £25 million to £70 million each. They reclaimed the contaminated former sites of large industrial concerns such as steelworks.

* Liverpool Garden Festival, 1984. Now a mix of housing, derelict sites (some intended for house building as of 2013), and a section of parkland renovated to restore public access in the early 2010s.
* Stoke-on-Trent Garden Festival, 1986. Now mostly maturing garden parkland, with some retail and offices.
* Glasgow Garden Festival, 1988. Now the Glasgow Science Centre, and a digital media village on the banks of the River Clyde.
* Gateshead Garden Festival, 1990. Now a housing estate.
* Ebbw Vale Garden Festival, 1992. Now a mix of housing, parkland, and a small business park.

## See also

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* Urban regeneration
* Garden festival

## Further reading

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Wikimedia Commons has media related to National Garden Festivals.

Andrew C. Theokas, Grounds for Review: The Garden Festival in Urban Planning and Design, Liverpool 2004.

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National garden festivals

* International Garden Festival (Liverpool, 1984)
* Stoke-on-Trent Garden Festival (Staffordshire, 1986)
* Glasgow Garden Festival (Scotland, 1988)
* Gateshead Garden Festival (Tyneside, 1990)
* Ebbw Vale Garden Festival (South Wales Valleys, 1992)

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