Birds at Cable Street Community Garden will have more nesting opportunities this year, thanks to nest boxes installed by local volunteers. The gardens are already full of birds, thanks to generous feeding. Large flocks of Goldfinches, Greenfinches and Chaffinches fill the air with song as they visit the feeders. The gardens have lots of other wildlife-friendly features, and have won the Best Community Wildlife Garden award in the Tower Hamlets in Bloom Awards for the last two years. But nesting opportunities in the gardens are limited, particularly for birds which nest in holes, as there are no old trees. To…
Author: admin
Tower Hamlets Council has planted rare Black Poplars in its parks this winter, as part of the implementation of the new Local Biodiversity Action Plan. Seventeen small Black Poplars have been planted during January and February in Victoria Park, Meath Gardens (photo bottom left), Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park and Weavers Woodland Walk (photo above). The Black Poplar is Britain’s rarest native timber tree, yet it was once so abundant in marshy pastures beside the Thames that it gave its name to Poplar district. There are now just a handful of mature Black Poplars in Tower Hamlets, most of them in…
Kenneth Greenway, Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park Manager, writes: It’s an exciting time for The Friends of Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, as slowly but surely we are starting to grow as an organisation. In the past three months we have welcomed two new members of staff to the team. Stephen Kershaw (above left), Cemetery Park Officer, joined us in September, and Tess Pettinger (above right), the Training and Learning Development Manager who started in October. Now settled in, I asked both of them how they are finding their new roles, their background and what they have planned for the Park. Stephen…
The Tower Hamlets in Bloom competition was a chance to praise the gorgeous gardens and green spaces created by the borough’s most talented gardeners. Green-fingered residents were invited to an awards ceremony on December 9 at the Art Pavilion, where they were presented with certificates by deputy mayor Cllr Oliur Rahman. Organised by the council, the competition is part of a nationwide scheme to encourage people to become interested in plants, wildlife and the environment. The competition has inspired residents to make the most of green spaces and to turn even the smallest garden into an idyllic haven. This year…
It’s been a good first year for the Tower Hamlets Bee Survey, with almost a thousand bees logged in parks and gardens across the borough. Bees are very important pollinators of food crops. They are in decline due to a combination of habitat loss, pesticides and disease. Bumblebees are a priority species group in the new Tower Hamlets Local Biodiversity Action Plan. The survey aims to monitor whether efforts to provide more habitat for bumblebees, such as nectar-rich flowers and places to nest, are working, so that bumblebee numbers increase. The survey was launched by the Council and Poplar HARCA…
With the help of a biodiversity grant from Tower Hamlets Homes, residents have been working hard to provide new wildlife habitats at Approach Gardens. Already a thriving community food-growing site, the gardens have received a wildlife makeover during 2014. Pride of place, once it is established, will go to the wildflower meadow. This has been carefully designed to produce a diverse, colourful meadow containing perennial wild flowers. The topsoil was removed from this area and aggregate added in order to produce a poor quality, sandy soil. Given the new soil condition, and the fact that the site slopes, a wild…
You can help to make the Regent’s Canal cleaner and greener. The Lower Regents Coalition is running a series of volunteer clean-up days as part of a project to make the canal more attractive for people and wildlife. The Lower Regents Coalition was founded by a small group of individuals who met while doing Thames21’s “Leading a Waterway Cleanup” training. They decided to carry out the spirit of this training in the community and invite others to join in. The Coalition has been running litter picks along East London’s waterways and surrounding green spaces since spring 2013. Over 150 volunteers…
Swedenborg Square Orchard has received the runner up award in the Pollinators section of the BIG Challenge 2014 awards. The BIG Challenge, organised by CIRIA*’s Biodiversity Interest Group, is to ‘do one thing’ for biodiversity. The challenge invites developers, communities and landowners to add one new biodiversity enhancement to a construction site, development or existing building. The community orchard on St George’s Estate was designed and planted by Trees for Cities, working with EastendHomes and residents. Local volunteers planted 58 fruit trees in February 2013. Then in the autumn of 2013, strips of cornfield annuals were sown between the trees.…
Victoria Park has done it again and has been named the UK’s favourite park in the Green Flag People’s Choice Award 2014. Following four weeks of intense voting, the public had its say with Victoria Park gaining more than 13,000 votes to be crowned the best park in the country.More than 32,000 votes were cast in the competition organised by Keep Britain Tidy, which gives out Green Flag Award status to the best open spaces in the country. Victoria Park came out on top against a staggering 1,482 Green Flag Award winning sites and previously won the prestigious accolade in…
Tower Hamlets calls on residents to help the borough’s biodiversity Tower Hamlets Council launched new plans to conserve and enhance wildlife in the borough on 1 October, as the Mayor and Cabinet approved the Tower Hamlets Local Biodiversity Action Plan 2014-19. The council called on residents and community groups to help them make the borough a cleaner and greener area. The new Local Biodiversity Action Plan (LBAP) builds on the successes of the last plan, which was adopted in 2009. During those five years, a huge amount was achieved for biodiversity in the borough, including: the creation of over six…