Porter Brook Pocket Park,

Sheffield UK, 2019

This mural was created to celebrate the Porter Brook renovation and recent river clean up in the area. Sheffield City Council has been working to bring back urban rivers, integrating them back into the city and removing the culverts that once hid them from view.

In 2015, the pocket park did not exist. There was just a crumbling car park with the river Porter nowhere to be seen, save for a brief glimpse before it disappeared into a culvert.

The success of uncovering Porter Brook is the first step in a new project to bring back Sheffield’s lost urban rivers – to remove the culverts and integrate them into the city again. Known as “daylighting”, it is part of a broader global movement towards rediscovering urban rivers in cities worldwide.