This suburb of the City of Warrington was planned and built in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Before the area was developed the area was a military armory, with only a wild landscape. Many of the trees and shrubs existing on the site are native self-seeded species. The community contains private homes, rental properties, and an assisted living village.
Two homeowners work in their garden at Gorse Covert, a private housing community in Warrington. Each home has a formal landscape facing the street and at the back of the houses there are common naturalized areas, linked by a trail system.
There is little communal landscaping in the street, allowing the homeowners to landscape their properties as they wish. Gorse Covert was produced by private developers, who maintained a lower cost by not having public spaces that would need to be maintained.
This elderly community is maintained by the Warrington Borough Council. Once a year the council accepts bids on the property from area landscape contractors, and makes their decision based on two factors. The first factor is the quality of work previously done by the company. The second factor is the amount of money it will cost to maintain the property.
The park at Oakwood, a rental property located in Warrington, shows how a good idea can go bad without proper maintenance. The area pictured on the right is a walking path through the park. The overgrown trees along the path were intended to give the residence a feeling of being surrounded by natural woodlands. This, however, makes the area unsafe to travel through and as a result the park is not used much by the residents of the community.
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