Grow Back Greener

London Fields is very popular but that popularity comes at a price and over time the levels of wildlife in the Park have dropped. We used to regularly see woodpeckers, thrushes and blackbirds. There were a lot more insects and now there’s not so much. Heavily compacted soil, lack of habitat and cover, and lack of food for insects means some parts of London Fields are a “green desert.”

The User Group secured a grant of £50,000 from the Greater London Assembly “Grow Back Greener fund.” 

We are using this to help improve wildlife habitat and create new teaching resources.

This is in three key parts of the park:

The Lansdowne Alive space

This area is fenced with a gate at one end. We are creating a mosaic of interlinked, curated habitats here to support a range of wildlife. This includes a wooded area, woodland edge, meadow, aquatic and scrub areas.

We will be working with local schools and academies so students learning about the environment can see how different habitats work across the seasons, which animals and plants thrive in which areas, and take part in volunteering opportunities.

The Haven

Temporarily fenced to allow the older plane trees here to recover, the area has got great scrub cover and is the only part of the park with minimal footfall. It is a resting spot for the park foxes and a source of food and cover for many of the park’s smaller birds such as wrens and robins. We’ve been building loggeries and hedges in this area to make it even more of a haven.

The Glade – green classroom and conservation area

This area next to Martello St was originally managed for wildlife and then started to get used more and more extensively for forest schools and green classrooms. The popularity of the area means there’s not a lot of plants left on the ground and the soil is very damaged. 

We’re working with schools to address this. We’ve build a number of loggeries and dead hedges and will plant living hedges around the edge. Areas have been replanted with woodland plants and these areas are protected with ropes to discourage people running across them.

Over the next couple of years we will see more and more ground cover growing back, and the trees and shrubs starting to regrow.

You can find out more about the Green Classroom Area here.