Wild Places
The four main habitats in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, as defined by the current Biodiversity Action Plan are:

Grounds and Gardens
Grounds and Gardens, which includes grounds of schools and other education providers, businesses, communal gardens on housing estates, allotments, community and private gardens, all provide a variety of different habitats for native plants and animals such as ponds, hedges, log piles, wildflower meadows and trees. Their distribution is widespread and together makes up about 28% of the total land use in the Borough, a significant coverage when compared to the 10.9 % of area offered by our official parks and open spaces. Many of these areas are of low habitat value but with active public involvement they can become a rich network of green corridors for biodiversity to expand and flourish. Animals can move easily from one to another and seeds can be spread forming potentially rich and important habitats for wildlife.

Parks, squares, burial grounds
Parks, squares, burial grounds and other urban green spaces are immensely important to the residents and workers of Tower Hamlets, providing opportunities to spend time out of doors, in contact with the natural world as represented by birds, grassland, trees, butterflies, flowers and aquatic life.

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets manages about 140 parks scattered unevenly across the Borough. Parks vary in size from the largest, Victoria Park, at 86 hectares down to one of the smallest, York Square, at 0.09 hectares. The voluntary sector, such as the Mudchute Association, maintains other sites as public open space. We have 236 hectares of open space out of a total area of 2176 hectares. This is only about 16 m2 of open space for each person in the Borough.

Canals, Rivers and Docks
Canals, constructed to meet the transport needs of the Industrial Revolution, were the motorways of their day, and their construction made a major impact on the 18th and 19tth century landscapes. However, once established, canals soon developed their own flora and fauna and today many are designated as important wildlife sites at local and national level.

The London canal network was cut between 1767 and 1830 to provide a transport link within London and between the capital and the industrial towns of the Midlands and the North. Tower Hamlets is fortunate to have four sections of the national canal circuit pass through the Borough: Lea Navigation, Limehouse Cut, Regent’s (also known as the Grand Union) and the Hertford Union.

Rivers
Tower Hamlets is defined on its southern and eastern boundaries by the River Thames and the River Lea respectively. The tidal Thames includes the tidal stretch of the River Lea known as Bow Creek. The tidal limit is marked on Ordnance Survey maps as terminating at Three Mill Lane; in reality the tidal limit stretches as far as Lea Bridge Road. The Tower Hamlets boundary includes Bow Creek from the Thames up to Bow Locks. Ribbons of mudflats are exposed at low tide along the banks of the Thames and the lower reaches of the Lea. These inner reaches of the Thames are important for wintering birds and provide feeding grounds for waders and waterfowl: cormorant, black-headed gulls and common terns are always present. The abundance of herons and cormorants along these stretches indicate a healthy fish population. Sandpiper and other waders are occasionally seen. Both freshwater and saltwater fish can be found off the Borough’s banks, which are the result of major improvements to clean up the Thames over the last few decades.

Docks
The first dock ‘West India’ was opened in 1802. The East India Company followed in 1806 with construction of a dock at Blackwall. The London Dock Company formed soon after and so construction began with the first of the London Docks opening in Wapping in 1805 and St. Katharine’s Dock in 1828. These docks were created in the 19th century to allow for the growing trade and commerce of the world and ever-larger ships and by the middle of the 1930s the docks were operating at their peak.

The rapid decline of industry, and subsequently the docks, began in the post World War Two period, partly due to the severe bomb damage which closed one third of the warehousing and partly as a result of the economic decline. The East India Dock closed in 1967 after 161 years of service. The others followed in fast succession with the last dock closing in 1981. By 1981 around 60% of the Docklands were vacant, derelict or seriously under-used. Wasteland meadows soon replaced the unused dockland areas supporting an exciting mix of grasses, exotics, invertebrates, snails and butterflies, which in turn attracted birds such as kestrels, finches and black redstarts.

The mass redevelopment of the docks began in the late 1980’s and continues today with riverside housing, manufacturing plants and office blocks, all bringing a new and different
kind of life back to the docks. Some of the present day redevelopments are considering ecology in their design and the water space is increasingly being recognised for its ecological value.

Built Environment
Walls or built structures often grow plants such as ivy, ferns, mosses, snapdragons and buddleia, which subsequently provide shelter and food for animals. Buildings may provide nesting and roosting places for birds and offer refuge to small animals such as spiders and scarce solitary bees and wasps. New or renovated buildings will generally eliminate these unplanned opportunities unless they are deliberately included. New buildings can be constructed to provide substantial habitats for wildlife. This includes features such as climber covered walls, built-in nesting opportunities, green roofs and the use of rainwater from roofs to create wetlands.

Interest in maximising the sustainability of new buildings has grown considerably in recent years, as is expressed by the Mayor’s Biodiversity Strategy and the London Plan.
Providing resources for wildlife within built structures is, in itself, an aspect of sustainability, as are the learning and caring possibilities created when wildlife and people are in close proximity.

The built environment in Tower Hamlets has expanded and intensified greatly in the last 20 years. The draft London Plan proposes 40,000 new homes and 100,000 new jobs for the Borough by 2016, more than for any other borough in London. It was written before an Olympic bid was contemplated. If long-term redevelopment in Tower Hamlets systematically incorporates greening strategies into the new built environment, both physical and psychological health benefits will be significant.