Parisian parks are an interesting story in themselves. Their history, design and usage have followed a different course to that in the UK. The wide open spaces around the Louvre provide a memorable image of the city, more redolent than Hyde Park is for London we’d argue. That’s a debate we’re happy to leave to our landscape architect friends.

The purpose of my recent trip was to review the Promenade Plantee (www.promenade-plantee.org/) in the context of a scheme we are pushing forward in Bankside, London. (www.betterbankside.co.uk/BUF)

The issue? In tight urban areas with 80% of the public realm that exists given over to highways, what opportunities are there to create interesting spaces, enclaves, oases for the embattled pedestrian? Promenade Plantee does this by exploiting the disused viaduct which from 1859 to 1969 brought the railway to Place de Bastille. The tracks have been removed and the bed is planted, formally, for its 4.5km length. Nearly 1.5 km is elevated, prompting comparisons with the High Line in New York (www.thehighline.org). Its website cites 16 other similar projects including the Holbeck Viaduct in Leeds.

How successful is this as a green intervention? It is reportedly popular with the locals, although on a beautiful spring day that wasn’t evident to me. I was disappointed with access arrangements – apparently the lift never works. Like other parks it is closed after the hours of darkness. The whiff of recreational drugs and extensive graffiti pointed to uses other than the contemplation of nature.

However climbing from the busy road close to one of the main transport interchanges in Paris to this plane of relative calm was a pleasurable experience. Traffic noise, but not sirens, retreated into the background. But the canopy you walk through is part branch part residential development, which limited the escapism. An experience that would sustain a brief interlude – but more than that? What do you think?