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Beechwood is a large residential estate in the eastern part of the Runcorn New Town, built in the 1970s on high ground above the Mersey Valley. The estate is characterised by its curvilinear streets, generous public open space and the mature tree planting that now shades the original housing. The woodland belts, grass verges and garden hedges of a mature new-town estate provide a diverse bee-forage range across the spring and summer; the Mersey Valley parks and the Bridgewater Canal corridor are accessible on foot from the estate's eastern edge.

The Mersey Estuary saltmarsh at Hale and the Weaver Navigation corridor carry sea aster, sea lavender and coastal meadow wildflowers through July and August — an uncommon estuarine forage source for the area. Oilseed rape is grown on the clay farmland around Halebank, Farnworth and the eastern edges of both towns, providing an April flow. Hawthorn hedgerows are dense along the Mersey Valley paths between the two towns and in the Daresbury and Moore corridor to the east. White clover fills the rough grassland of the Halton Lea area and the open ground around the new-town estates. Bramble is prolific on the railway embankments, the brownfield margins of the former chemical works, and the Spike Island reserve. Lime trees line the older streets of Widnes and the Victorian quarter of Runcorn, while ivy on the sandstone bluff faces and older brickwork closes the season in October.