Stepps, Glasgow

Just a five minute walk from my partner's family home in Stepps there is a fantastic bit of wild land which we often walk through to get to his Grannie's house in Chryston. I have only fairly recently discovered that this area is in fact on the edge of the Seven Lochs Wetland Park: a huge urban park, comprising some 20 km² and supposedly 'Scotland's largest urban nature park'.

I am hoping sometime soon we can get out there and explore this vast and diverse park some more. From the park's website (see link below) it sounds like the future is promising for the area, having received £4.5 million funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in the Summer of 2016 to support the planned £6.8 million project to develop the park. This is just another example of how wonderfully green Glasgow is as a city and how valued its green spaces are. The park already consists of four local nature reserves: Bishop Loch, Cardowan Moss, Commonhead Moss and Hogganfield Park and also of Drumpellier Country Park (and which I recently visited separately) which in itself encompasses Woodend Loch SSSI and five Lochs. It is fantastic that so many people can live in such a big city and still have so many close opportunities to experience nature.

These few photos are nothing spectacular since I didn't have too much time but I hope in their own way they show how I was able to enjoy the quiet moments of nature on the edge of the urban environment. I particularly love the contrast of delicate nature versus the rigid urban shapes in the shadows of the last two photos.

Seven Lochs Wetland Park website: http://www.sevenlochs.org/