Turning a Fly Tipped Alleyway Into Wildlife Friendly Garden

Below you will find the story of Beech Alley Gardens in Levenshulme.  Its a disused, flytipped alleyway, we aim to make it into a wildlife-focused neighbourhood garden.

Regular updates and images will be added to this blog as the alleyway progresses.  Any questions, please contact me @ [email protected]

 

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How We Started

In July 2025, Levenshulme was named the ‘Fly Tipping Capital of Manchester‘, This came up in discussion during a dinner with our neighbours, as our alleyway is heavily flytipped. We decided to do something about it.

We thought a good place to start would be to paint the 10m-long breezeblock wall.  Perhaps it would make the alleyway look cared for, which would deter fly-tippers.  So we got in touch with a local artist Richard @ Heart Murals, who agreed to paint a mural on the wall.

Richard also referred us to Manchester Council’s Neighbourhood Investment Fund (NIF) as he thought the fly-tipping issues we were facing would qualify. It turns out Manchester Council identified our street as a fly-tipping hotspot.  We were awarded funding for the mural, lights, planters and soil to make the alleyway look less like a dumping ground.

We are hopeful that the improvements to the alleyway will stop the fly-tipping or at least slow it down.  Then we aim to make the space as wildlife-friendly as possible.  We are planning to add hedghog houses, bee-friendly plants, birdhouses, and anything else that we can do to encourage animals to the alleyway.

 

Project Images

New images will be added regularly as the alleyway progresses

 

July 2025

Here is a layout of the alleyway and a rough plan that we put together.

• Yellow planters in the alleyway entrance will have ‘No fly tipping’ signs attached to them.  This is the most heavily fly-tipped area. We plan to make them look as beautiful and well-kept as possible.  Hopefully, this will make fly-tippers think twice about dumping their rubbish
• Blue planters in the corner of the alley are visible from the entrance.  They will need to look well-kept as well.
• Solar lights will be installed in the corner of the alley as a further deterrent
• Red planters are spread throughout the rest of the alleyway after the rubbish has been removed
• Mural along the grey breeze block wall as a centre piece, which will hopefully make the alley more welcoming

 

July 2025

Pictures of the alley before we started the project.

This is the entrance to the alley, which gets weekly fly tipping of furniture, TVs, building materials and general rubbish.

This old fridge has been in the alleyway longer than I have lived in Levenshulme

This is the view at the end of the alley

 

October 2025

The mural was painted on a 10m long wall in the centre of the alleyway.  The wall is approx 10ft high and made of breeze blocks, which resembled a prison wall.  Thanks to Richard @ Heart Murals, the wall is the centre piece of the garden.

 

November 2025

There is a wide corner in the alleyway, which seemed perfect to add some wildlife-friendly plants

Dumped pallets and building materials were used to level the ground before we added the large builder bags and metal drums for planters.

Friends helping to fill the planters and plant our first bee-friendly plants.

A few logs and sticks added to cover up the pallets and make bug friendly

 

A few years ago, I tripped over a hedgehog on my way home.  I ushered it into the alleyway.  In the hope that hedgehogs might find their way back to our alley, we installed a few hedgehog houses hidden behind the planters.

According to Pinterest, this is the shape of a hedgehog house. There is a tunnel entrance approximately 13cm wide, suited to hedgehogs but will stop potential predators. We added slate on the floor to stop weeds from taking over

We added a lining of wool to keep the hedgehogs warm. It was supposed to be hay, but we didn’t have any, so we improvised.

To keep the hedgehogs safe, we added a slate roof and weighed it down with a few bricks

 

At the far end of the alley, we planned to create an allotment area, material and budget permitting.  It was full of old building rubble, paddling pools, overgrowth, a discarded green bin and a buried pet.

A dog jawbone was found while digging up all of the dirt.

We cleared all of the rubbish and put some planters along the wall, ready for planting vegetables.  Various plant pots were donated by the neighbours and the shelves were salvaged from a skip.

We managed to remove a tree stump using a sledgehammer and a lot of determination

The tree stump is now a trophy

There were piles of rubble spread throughout the alleyway.

We kept all of the rubble that we found in placed it into builders’ bags

We used the rubble to make gabion benches, which were donated to the project by Wire Fence. Gabions make great public seating areas as they are very heavy once filled and impossible to steal.

Our alleyway has a dip in the middle, so first we had to use some of the building materials to level the ground.

We filled the front of the gabion with the nicer-looking bricks.

The view of the front of the gabion bench after it had been filled.

With most of the rubble and rubbish cleared, we started to get creative, recycling all the materials we could.

We made some shelves using discarded bricks, slate and flagstones.  We placed some old pots, a chimney and a wash basin that we will fill with soil and plants.

We used a discarded pallet to level the metal planters that we purchased and also added a couple of old bins, which we will use as planters too.

The soil delivery was a bit of a nightmare.  The truck took up the width of the road and had to crane the soil bags over parked cars to get them into the alleyway.

The neighbours helped to take the soil from the alleyway entrance to the planters and pots that needed filling

There is a dip into into the middle of the alley, which had collected years of soil, rubbish and debris.  We decided to remove it and replace it with gravel to create level ground and allow for better drainage.   Levelling the ground would allow the residents to add tables, chairs and use the space without losing their footing.  It would also be safer for kids and make it easier for wheelchairs to access.

We assumed the soil was of good quality because there were loads of worms, so we kept piles of it to reuse.

There was also a lot of buried plastic and rubbish that we removed

We cut away thick roots that had grown in the middle, where the soil was deepest

It took a few hours, but we managed to clear the middle section

We got 2 tonnes of gravel delivered, which we had to spread evenly throughout.

It started to rain, which was a good test of the new drainage system. In places, the water level was higher than the gravel, so we added a deeper layer

We wanted the end of the alley to have a wild flower and grass floor. We put all of the soil that we dug up from the middle of the alley over the top, then added stepping stones and paving slabs.

 

Thanks to Levenshulme in Bloom, Tudor at Manchester City Council, Brenda at Bud Garden Centre and Shelia at the The Bee Sanctuary, we had a generous amount of plants and bulbs.

The cat seemed to think that every planter was a potential litter tray

 

We wanted to keep the fridge as a reminder of how the alley used to look.  It was also a great shape and size for a large planter.

First, we punched around 20 holes into the bottom of the fridge for drainage using a hammer and screwdriver.  We didn’t have a drill strong enough to make the holes.

Then we filled it with alleyway rubble to weight it down and improve drainage

Then topped it up with soil and compost

And finally planted a Viburnum Tinus bush that grows to 2-3m

 

We arranged planters around the fridge to make it decorative

A mirror was dumped whilst we were working in the alley.  A very sneaky bit of fly tipping, so re-purposed it.

 

We built an arch feature using gabions and panels.

We placed x2 45cm cube gabions on either side of the alley, then filled them with bricks to weigh them down

We attached the panel to the gabion using cable ties

Planters were placed on top the gabions, adding further weight.

We attached another panel to the upright panels to create an arch.

The decorative pineapples were bought from Facebook Marketplace for £10.

Finally, we added climbing plants

 

We removed the overgrowth that was covering up some of the neighbours’ access to the alleyway.

It was quite tiring work. Some of the workers started to rebel.

The remains were used to stuff into nooks, crannies and into pallets to encourage bugs and insects.

 

 

Our local pub had some iron gates tucked away in their garden, which were the perfect fit for our alleyway entrance.  They agreed to sell them for £100 and threw in some pots and chairs too.  They were very heavy so it was a bit of a struggle getting them back to the alley.

 

We made a seating area to enjoy the butterflies and the bees

The planters and the bench were purchased from £30 from Facebook Marketplace.

More images coming soon

 

Sponsors & Supporters

 

Please find a list of the people and companies that have supported the project

 

Financial Supporters

• Manchester City Council – Huge thanks to Neighbourhood Officer Ollie.  Without your funding via the Neighbourhood Investment Fund (NIF), the project would not have got started
• Manchester City Council – Thanks to Tudor, the Climate Change Officer, for funding us £200 to spend on plants and referring us to Levenshulme Flowers in Bloom
• Wickes Stockport Branch – Thanks to Tina @ for donating £100 via the Wickes Community Program.
• Klondyke – Thanks to Les for donating chairs and planters

 

Volunteers & Advice

• Residents of Beech Range – Thanks to everyone living on Beech Range who has given their time and effort
• Bee Sanctuary – Thanks to Brian for allowing us to use the good name of the Bee Sanctuary so we could apply NIF funding.  Thanks also to Shelia for donating bulbs.
• Heart Murals – Thanks, Richard, for referring us to the Neighbourhood Investment Fund and for painting a beautiful mural.  It looks amazing
• Bud Garden Centre – Thanks Brenda, for advising us on the best plants to use, helping us find cheap soil and pointing us to new funding sources
• Levenshulme Flower in Bloom – Thanks to group members for your plant donations
• Burnage Flowers in Bloom – Thanks to Dennis for visiting the alleyway before we got started to advise how to make the alleyway wildlife-friendly

 

Inspiration

• Cloud Gardener – thanks to Jason for publishing his alleyway tour of Cloudy Alley.  The video was a great way for us to start getting excited about the project
• Groundwork’s ‘How to Green Your Alleyway’ blog was a great place for practical tips and funding advice
• Pinterest – a great source of inspiration from around the world. I found loads of fun gardening ideas on this board

 

Become a Sponsor

If you can donate any of the following items, we would love to hear from you.  In return, we will gladly add you to our list of supporters and link to your company

• Bird houses
• Gravel
• Plants
• Solar lights
• A slim lean-to shed
• Bin stores
• Green roof for bin stores
• Garden arches
• Table and chairs
• Hanging baskets
• Sunshade sail
• Bunting
• Water butts

Please email John @ [email protected]