L.P. Hartley said in his novel ‘The Go-Between’, ‘the past is a foreign country…’. Landscape architects say ‘go back to your old projects at your peril, as they might be unrecognisable after a few years!’. However, a recent flying visit to Chirton Dene Park, Royal Quays, was a delightful exception. It’s now 34 years since Simon and Ros were involved with designing the park and it is maturing well, whilst retaining its freshness and crisp detailing. The park was one of the first projects to be built on this once heavily polluted site, with the aim that it would encourage developers to build across this 200 acre, in a time of deep depression. It worked, and today’s mature green infrastructure makes Royal Quays a pleasant place to live, work, relax and walk and cycle through, as well as being a haven for wildlife - a lesson to all political parties to invest in landscape works, not as an afterthought, but at forefront of any development.