POMONA ISLAND
Pomona Island is one of Manchester’s last green spaces. Stretching from the edges of the city centre all the way to Salford Quays. This wasteland which is bustling with wildlife and Flora is slowly being developed and is disappearing to make way for thousands of new homes.
While some see Pomona as neglected and unapproachable, the people who love this lost island of Manchester regard it as place of isolation and paradise. Once a bustling dockland and now a wasteland, Pomona straddles the boroughs of Salford, Trafford and Manchester. These edgelands of the city are the alternative countryside, with the sight of another human here as fleeting as that of a skylark.
Pomona Island (Image: Google Earth)
Only accessible by a single footbridge, Pomona is only a few minutes walk from Manchester’s city centre, and yet seems worlds away from anywhere. The waterways provide a wildlife corridor which have become the home for waterfowl, lapwing, dunnock, cormorant and bullfinch. Meadow-sweet, yellow wart, teesle and orchids eke out an existence in among the rubble and stone work of the old docks.
Today the site is as desolate as its ever been. During the industrial revolution, the land was home to a botanical gardens and the Royal Pomona Palace – named after Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit trees.
The southern fringes of the island are flanked by Victorian railway arches and an elevated section of the city’s Metrolink tram system. These sheltered areas have been exploited by rough sleepers – tents used needles, sleeping bags and fire pits. The landscape of Pomona is as fanciful and free as it is dystopian and unsettling.
The extreme fringes of Pomona Island are now beginning to be developed. The slow creep of the expanding city and the ensuing uncertainty has begun. This unique green space is now in danger of being lost forever.
In recent years, Pomona has been dug and raked over several times in a vain and deceitful attempt to destroy its rare plant life, and so prevent it from being listed as an area of ecological importance. Despite this trauma, Pomona has regenerated and continues to thrive as a green space. These actions to clear the site may have ironically created an even more diverse landscape for rare plant species.
