Culverting the river and placing a park on top will in all intents and purposes remove the Bride River Valley from the Northside and replace it with a concrete garden. mature trees will be cut down and the river will disappear underground. This will result in loss of habitat for current fauna - important nursing grounds for otter families and dipper, heron and other local wildlife. It will completely remove an important  wild element from the city. and its human inhabitants. Culverting is expensive and hasn't proved to be the mist successful way to deal with flooding. A river need its flood plains, not more surfacing, slowing the river upstream will achieve better prevention from urban flooding,  more simply and with much less waste of public funding.