Defending the Council's role in allotment management

I could only attend the first half of last night's consultation  meeting on self-management of allotments. My impression by the time I left was that the majority of the large audience of allotment holders was sceptical about such a scheme - although that might have been changed by later presentations.

Council officers made it clear from the beginning that the consultation did not constitute a recommendation for allotments to be self-managed, 'nor is there a requirement to do so.'

Despite persuasive speeches from  Richard King of Barnet Allotment Federation and Richard Wiltshire of the National Allotment Society (there were other speakers later) the Q&A sessions revealed problems, not least (although it was said to be only a few hours a week), the amount of work involved in self-management (budgeting, managing lettings, rent collection, bank account, public liability insurance, dispute management) seemed daunting. 'We just want to get on with gardening' someone muttered.

The self-managed Allotment Association would take over maintenance of trees, paths, fencing and water and the question immediately arose of the inequality between allotment sites where some would face flooding problems or contain a large number of mature trees that would require maintenance.

Such inequalities would require such allotments to put up rents in order to have a fund to cover major expenditure while others would require less of a contingency and so would have lower rents. A response that there would need to be a 'levelling off' between sites  before they were handed over to Associations was not very convincing.

The audience were not much impressed by the guest speakers revelation that self-management had increased rents and that this was justified by the new freedom they had to improve the allotment.

Speakers from the audience suggested there was a need for an overall body to manage cross-borough waiting list rather than each independent self-managed site to have its own waiting list.

The argument, particularly from Barnet, that self-management was preferable to poor council management ('Easy Council' Barnet wants to get rid of everything anyway) was not in general favourable received, with  praise for the work of the current Allotments Officer, in allotment management, training, promoting organic gardening and sustainability and the overall Council food growing strategy,  despite more general criticisms of the Council.

Brent has 22 allotment sites, only one of which is currently self-managed, with the 21 managed by the Food Growing and Allotments Officer. At the end of January 2016 there were 1,064 plots of which 1,029 were let and a waiting list of 201 individuals.

Officers did refer to the Council's need to make savings and the possibility of budget cuts in the service but also stated that there were no plans to sell off sites to developers.

The legal position is that Section 23 of the Small Holdings and Allotments Act 1908 puts the Council under a duty to provide a sufficient number of allotments with powers to improve, maintain and manage allotments. However, he legislation does not set minimum standards and these powers are discretionary - not a duty: 'Each individual authority can decide how to use these powers and what proportion of its resources to allocate to the service.'

The proponents of self-management quoted this as a reason to opt for self-management as it would be easier to defend allotment provision if it was self-financing.

The almost forgotten 'Big Society' was quoted.

Save our Gardens

Destruction in Salmon Street

Something that really upsets me is when I see yet another front garden being ripped out and paved over. There's something really brutal about it and it is  regular occurrence in Brent.  Even worse is when there is no attempt to retain even a border or a little container planting:

Car park with house attached, Queen's Drive

 The London Wildlife Trust published a report last week  'London - Garden City?'which recorded the loss of gardens in London. You can download the report HERE .

'As established by this report, London’s gardens cover a vast area. But the speed and scale of their loss is alarming,’ says Mathew Frith, Deputy Chief Executive of London Wildlife Trust. ‘Collectively these losses detrimentally affect London’s wildlife and impact on our ability to cope with climate change. It’s never been more important that Londoners understand the value of our capital’s gardens. A well managed network of the city’s 3.8 million gardens support essential wildlife habitat and offer important environmental benefits in response to climate change including sustainable urban drainage.'


The loss is a combination of hard surfacing to provide car parking space - what the estate agents love to call 'off-road parking'; erection of sheds, garages, glasshouses and bottom of the garden studies etc; and the development of back gardens for new housing. Brent suffers from all these and the transformation would bewilder anyone transported to the present from the 1950's: 'What have we done with our cherished front gardens?'


It isn't just front gardens either. A parent I visited recently proudly told me she had converted the back garden into a playground for her children and took me into her back room to show me the garden,  paved completely from house to back fence,  with nothing growing in it at all. As I stared I remembered our back garden in Kingsbury when I was a kid.  We played hide and seek amongst the shrubs, picked the figs and threw them at each other,  built little camp fires to cook sausages and baked beans, searched in the irises to find snails and have snail races - and even planted seeds and nurtured the young plants. What a loss.


All is not completely lost though.  I have already reported on the Chalkhill allotments which are proving very popular but many of the very small gardens on the estate are something to wonder at. When I have leafleted on the estate I have stopped to admire the ingenious ways people have managed to grow flowers, tomatoes, corn, aubergines, runner beans and courgettes in a tiny space, often in their front gardens. Some conservation areas, such as St Andrew's in Kingsbury have managed to retain grass verges and the ban on drop kerbs. The difference is striking:

Well's Drive in the St Andrew's Conservation area

Even on the busy Church Lane it is possible to have a lovely front garden:

Front garden in Church Lane, Kingsbury

The Report says that on average the equivalent of two and a half Hyde Parks has been lost each year between 1998-99 and 2006-8. In the same period the amount of hard surfacing increased by 26% and the amount of lawn decreased by 16%. Overall vegetation in gardens decreased by 12%. On average 500 gardens, or part gardens, were lost to development each year.

Action needs to be taken at a London-wide as well as a borough level. This not only requires stricter planning controls but also weaning people away from cars by providing better public transport.  It could be that the price of oil will do the trick in the longer term. There is also an issue with people's lack of time in this era of long working hours and multiple jobs and also with lack of knowledge about gardening. The former is obviously a wider social issue but it has been encouraging to see the latter addressed. Metropolitan Housing is running gardening workshops on Chalkhill, the Transition movement has been doing some educative work, and Brent Elders' Voice has introduced a scheme for cross-generational support to keep gardens under cultivation.


I do my bit to encourage wildlife in my very small back garden but is is often hard to persuade visitors that I have planted the jungle deliberately! However they are soon entranced by the many visiting birds, including woodpeckers and the busy pond life.

Join the Conservation Day at the Welsh Harp Centre on Saturday August 17th

From Thames 21

Each month a great group of individuals come together to do extremely useful conservation and maintenance work around the Centre using basic gardening tools, to gain skills and meet new people. This work supports the activities of the Welsh Harp Environmental Education Centre including over 3000 school children that attend the Centre each year and improves the biodiversity of the woodland habitat. What will be the tasks at the next event? (August 17th 10am-12.30pm) Clear algae from the pond Cut back vegetation around pond area Other tasks as they come up What else do you need to know? All welcome! Young people aged 17 years and under need to be accompanied by a responsible adult, each individual child under 11 years old will need an adult with them at all times as we are using sharp tools.  Tasks can be adapted or alternative tasks available for all levels of involvement. Tea, coffee and snacks, steel toe cap wellington boots, tools and gloves are all provided.  Wear comfortable outdoor clothing suitable for gardening. Please meet inside the Education Centre. We have achieved a lot since these events have started and we will continue to address many other aspects of the WHEEC Habitat Management Plan that need attending to. If you would like a copy of the management plan or information about the group, please email me - Deb Frankiewicz: welshharpcentre@thames21.org.uk. Hope to see as many of you as possible at the next event!

Brent makes good progress on allotments and food growing

My Birchen Grove plot this morning

As the Farm Terrace alloment holders in Watford take legal action against Eric Pickles in a bid to save their plots LINK it seems a good time to review the state of allotments and allotment gardening in Brent.

The appointment of Vanessa Hampton as Food Growing and Allotment Officer and the updating of food growing strategies seems to have resulted in a much more proactive approach with issues such as uncultivated and over-grown plots being dealt with more efficiently.

In a letter to allottees Hampton reports:

• 91% of plots are let
• 99.6%of allotment plots are let or under offer
• 98.7% of plots are being cultivated (up from 92% last year)
• There have been extensive clearane to bring over 70 plots overgrown with invasive weeds back into cultivation
• From April 2013, over 15 metric tonnes of rubbish was clear from allotment sites
• She worked on sites with volunteers including 120 young adults from the Challenge Network, the Wembley Stadium Geen Team and Veolia Environmental Services
• Ongoing renovation of council-owned sheds and drainage improvement works at various sites

Vanessa is to be applauded on the progress she has made in a short time and it has been good to see visible progress on my own site at Birchen Grove. Previously uncultivated plots were left for a long time giving weeds and brambles a chance to get a real hold on them, making it harder to bring them back to cultivation and spreading weeds seeds all over neighbouring plots.

An uncultivated plot at Birchen Grove

Following in the steps of the gardening classes that have take place on the Metropolitan Housing allotments on Chalkhill Estate, Vanessa Hampton is running free master classes on 'Preparing Your Plot for Cultivation' for new or inexperienced tenants to help them 'get started on plot clearance and digging with confidence'.

She will show tenants how to transform their plot from 'grass to a productive food-growing area'. The classes are open to any plot holder, irrespective of where their plot is located are available on two dates at two different venues. They will be held regardless of weather conditions.

• Saturday 25th January 2014 from 11am-1pm Birchen Grove, Kingsbury NW9 8SE (Map showing location on entrance gate if you are late)
• Saturday 1st February 2014 from 11am-1pm at Gibbons Road allotment, Gibbons Road, Harlesden, NW10 9BR

Advance booking and tools not required but wear sturdy waterproof shoes and warm layered clothing.

Not so welcome of course is the annual increase in allotment fees. The proposed increases below are subject to the final decision of Full Council in February.

Brent Residents - Increase of 3% which raises rents from £81.11 annually for 5 poles to £83.50. Council owned sheds will increase by  4% to an annual rent of £22.50 (£21.63)

Non Brent Residents - Increase of 15% which raises rents from £81.11 to £93.30. Council owned sheds will increase by 16% to £25 (£21.63)

Community groups that serve mainly Brent residents will have the same increases as Brent residents.

However the concession for 'senior citizens' of a 50% discount on the first 5 poles will now start at the age of 60 for both men and women. Previously it was 65 for men and 60 for women.

Residents who receive unemployment benefit will  need to provide up to date proof of their status from the DWP or similar in order to receive the concessionary rate for 2014..

By the way, I still had a broad bean in flower out in the open on my plot today, December 29th...

For more on the Farm Terrace Campaign follow this LINK

Uncovering Kilburn’s History – Part 3

In Part 2 (“click” on the link if you missed it) of our look at Kilburn’s past, we had reached the early years of the 19^th century. This week, we’ll venture further into that century.

 

Before 1800 Kilburn was mostly rural, with some houses and cottages, as well as a number of inns catering for travellers and stage coach services, along the main road. Although several houses (mainly on the Hampstead side) had been built in the area in the 17th century, the road conditions were bad, and highway robbers were at large. Money from trusts set up by benevolent gentlemen like William Kempe, Edward Harvist and John Lyon were not enough to improve the roads. 

 

1. The Kilburn tollgate in 1860, and 1819 list of toll charges. (Brent Archives online images 2519 & 2023)

A new source of funds was needed to maintain the highway, and in 1710 a turnpike (an old form of toll road) was created, with a toll gate at Kilburn Bridge to charge road users at the entrance to Willesden parish. This place is now near the Queen's Arms at Maida Vale. Later it was moved to Shoot Up Hill, and the turnpike was abolished in 1872.

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2. Kilburn Park Farm, 1865. (Image from the internet)

 

Kilburn Park Farm, shown above in 1865, lay "nearly opposite the ’Old Red Lion’ Edgware Road, Paddington, and immediately adjoining Verey Brewery." The path seen in front of the barn carried on to Willesden. The part of Kilburn on the Willesden side belonged to the manors of Bounds, Brondesbury and Mapesbury. These manors were all the property of St. Paul's Cathedral. Mapesbury (named after Walter Map, an early medieval writer, courtier and priest) and Brondesbury ('Brand's manor') were respectively situated north and south of Mapes (later Willesden) Lane. Local estates in the south of the area included Abbey Farm, which covered the former Kilburn Priory.

 

3. St Paul's Church, Kilburn Square, from the High Road. (From the internet: www.images-of-london.co.uk )

 

Some houses were built on the Kilburn Priory estate and at Kilburn Square, around St. Paul’s Chapel (built in 1835, demolished in 1934, St. Paul’s was the only church along the front of Edgware Road from Marble Arch to Edgware). The rural tranquillity of the early 19^th century Kilburn attracted middle class professionals who liked to live in ‘beautiful villas’, scattered along the Edgware Road. We are going to look at some houses of note and their occupants. (If you would like to see maps showing estate boundaries and the locations of the major houses, please refer to ‘Kilburn and West Hampstead Past’ by Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms, which you can borrow from Brent Libraries, ref. 942.142)

 

The first large house to be seen on entering Kilburn from the south was the Willesden Manor House, on a site between today’s Oxford and Cambridge Roads. There was a 16^th century estate of 160 acres, with a farmhouse in this area. In 1649 it was recorded as a house of six rooms. By 1788, it was owned by Lady Sarah Salusbury, the widow of Sir Thomas Salusbury, a judge of the High Court of Admiralty. 

 

She settled the estate in trust for her husband’s nephew, the Rev. Lynch Salusbury, and when he died in 1837, it passed to his daughter Lady Elizabeth May Salusbury, who had married her cousin Sir Thomas Robert Salusbury (there were other occupants there later). Lady Salusbury sold her properties to the Church Commissioners in 1856, and we will look at what happened to them in the next part of Kilburn’s story (although the Salusbury name may give you a clue).

 

From around the middle of the 18^th century, a house called The Elms, or Elm Lodge, stood on the site of the present day Gaumont State Cinema, at the junction of Kilburn High Road and Willesden Lane. Following a number of owners and occupiers (one of whom was Lady Salusbury in 1799), Mrs. Pickersgill was rated for the house from 1829 until 1832. She was probably the wife of Henry William Pickersgill R.A., an eminent portrait painter, who among his many works painted the writer W.H. Ainsworth, who later lived in the house. She was running a school for ‘female education’. 

 

4. The Elms, Kilburn, with decorators at work in late Victorian times. (Brent Archives online image 2046)

 

In 1832 John Ebers, a widower with two daughters moved into The Elms. He was a theatre manager and had a publishing business in Old Bond Street. In 1826 he had met a young man called William Harrison Ainsworth, who was to become his son-in-law, marrying his youngest daughter Fanny (both aged 21). Ainsworth came to London to study law, but soon gave it up and became a writer. Ebers introduced him into theatrical and literary circles, as well as publishing one of his early novels. 

 

5. William Harrison Ainsworth, by Daniel Maclise, and an illiustration from "Rookwood". (From the internet)

 

Ainsworth and his wife first lived near Regent’s Park, but later moved to Kilburn. It was here that he began writing his first famous novel “Rookwood”, about the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin. Although the inn where Dick met his accomplices is based on The Cock in Kilburn, the story is fiction and there’s no historical evidence to link Dick Turpin to Kilburn. As we saw in an article about Church End, Ainsworth often used Willesden locations in his stories! It is from “Rookwood” that the widely held legend originates, of Turpin riding his horse, Black Bess, all the away from London to York (again, a fiction).

 

Ainsworth’s marriage was not successful, and in 1835 he separated from his wife and moved with his three young daughters to Kensal Lodge. His next home, Kensal Manor House, offered hospitality to famous literary figures of the day, including Dickens and Thackeray. Ainsworth published 39 novels, which enjoyed great success in Victorian England. He is buried at Kensal Green cemetery. 

 

Another grand house with a famous Victorian resident, Kilburn House, was situated north of today’s Kilburn Square near Priory Park Road. At the beginning of 19^th century, Kilburn House was a pleasant suburban villa with extensive grounds. For most of its previous history it was leased to wealthy tenants, who usually stayed only a few years. Between 1839 and 1856 the newsagent and future politician W.H. Smith lived here with his father, when they moved the family home from their offices in Strand.

 

William Henry Smith senior was a newspaper proprietor, who also ran a successful newspaper distribution business. He worked so hard that he became ill, and the family moved to Kilburn for a more restful residence. However, every weekday he, together with this son, also William Henry, got up at 4 am for the one hour journey of 5 miles to his Strand office! In 1846 the son became a partner, and W.H. Smith & Son was born. 

 

 

6. W.H. Smith, M.P., as First Lord of the Admiralty in a "Punch" cartoon from 1877, and an 1878 parody.
    (Main image from “Kilburn and West Hampstead Past”, with others from the internet)

 

William Henry the younger took the business to a new level, when, capitalising on the railway boom, he negotiated with various railway companies the running of book stalls at stations. Later he became an M.P. and served in senior government and ministerial posts, including his appointment, by Benjamin Disraeli in 1877, as the First Lord of the Admiralty, despite him having no naval experience. He was parodied as the character Sir Joseph Porter, in Gilbert and Sullivan’s 1878 light opera “H.M.S. Pinafore”, with a famous song in which he tells how he became ‘the Ruler of the Queen’s Navy’ by never going to sea, and because:

 

‘I always voted at my party’s call,
And I never thought of thinking for myself at all.’

 

The start of building development in the area annoyed the Smiths, and in 1856 the family moved from Kilburn to Hertfordshire.

 

 

7. The Grange, Kilburn. (From “Kilburn and West Hampstead Past” by Dick Weindling and Marianne Colloms)

 

Among other notable grand houses were The Grange, on the Camden side, a ‘Gothic-style House’, occupied by the Peters family. Thomas Peters was a coach builder who made coaches for Queen Victoria, and his widow Ada run a literary saloon at the house. Hampstead Council bought the estate in 1911 to turn it into a park, but the grand house did not survive. The Grange Cinema opened on the site in 1914 (more about the cinema later).

 

 

8. Before and after views of the grounds at Brondesbury by Humphry Repton. (Images from the internet)

 

Brondesbury Manor House was on the southern side of Willesden Lane, at the western edge of Kilburn. The estate was first mentioned in the 13^th century, and the moated manor house was rebuilt in the 18^th century as a three-storeyed villa, becoming the main home of Lady Sarah Salusbury. In 1789, she had the grounds landscaped by Humphry Repton (who also designed Wembley Park), and following his wishes it became known as Brondesbury Park.

 

Repton’s “red book” for Brandsbury still exists, and he reproduced his before and after views (replacing the fence with a “ha-ha”) in his 1794 book “Sketches and Hints on Landscape Gardening”. Among the house’s other famous later occupiers were the bankers Sir Coutts Trotter and Charles Hambro, and Lady Elizabeth Salusbury.

 

Mapesbury House was part of the 300-acre estate on the northern side of Willesden Lane. A 17^th century two-storeyed house was leased in 1828 to a horse dealer named William Anderson, who set up a horse training centre there. That continued as its main use until the house was demolished in 1925.

 

Mon Abri, No. 27 Shoot Up Hill, was the home of Senor Manuel Garcia, a renowned Victorian singing teacher and the inventor of laryngoscope, born in Madrid in 1805. Among his pupils was the famous Jenny Lind. 

 

Having looked at some of the grander Kilburn homes, next week will bring us to the growth of the local area and its community from Victorian times into the early 20^th century. I hope you will join me again then.

 

Irina Porter, Willesden Local History Society.

 

A special thank you to local historian Dick Weindling, co-author of 'Kilburn and West Hampstead Past' and History of Kilburn and West Hampstead blog .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE: Join the Mayoral Environment Debate. Let's speak out for London's parks! Re-scheduled to Wednesday April 21st

 

Fryent Country Park, Kingsbury

 

 From London Friends of Green Spaces Network

Update from the organisers: *CHANGE OF DATE* Due to the pause in political campaigning following the sad death of Prince Philip we have had to postpone the Mayoral Environment Debate. The debate will now take place from 7pm to 9pm on Wednesday 21st April: https://www.wcl.org.uk/mayoral-environment-debate.asp

 
Wednesday 21st April, 7pm – 9pm
Chaired by presenter & environmentalist Julia Bradbury 

The debate will allow Mayoral candidates to forward their policies on nature and climate to London’s voters. If you want cleaner air, thriving parks, more abundant wildlife and new foot paths and cycle ways, this is your chance to ask the next Mayor for them. 

To attend, please register through this link [No need to re-register if you already have done so].

The More Natural Capital Coalition are a group of environmental charities who share a common vision for a greener London. 

We are joining forces with climate and transport groups in London to host the Mayoral Environment Debate. Organisations supporting the Environment Debate include:  RSPB, Open Spaces Society, The Orchard Project, CPRE London, Woodland Trust, Butterfly Conservation, London Friends of Greenspaces Network, WWT, WCL, London Gardens Trust, Ramblers, Trees for Cities, London National Park City, Living Streets Group, London Wildlife Trust, Sustain, The Conservation Volunteers, Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, A Rocha UK, Badger Trust, Born Free Foundation, British Mountaineering Council, Institute of Fisheries Management, Four Paws UK, Tranquil City, Wildlife Gardening Forum, London Greenpeace groups, London Friends of the Earth Groups, Haringey Clean Air Group

All the best, 
Dave Morris, Chair LFGN
Alice Roberts and Laura Collins at CPRE London 
CPRE London is working with LFGN to bring more support to London's friends groups

 

Beavers Viable on the Wealdstone Brook in Woodcock Park, Kenton

Guest post by Tara Furlong on behalf of Friends of Woodock Park,

Residents petitioned Brent Together Towards Zero, who kindly funded the Friends of Woodcock Park to undertake the first stage of a beaver viability study on the Wealdstone Brook in Woodcock Park, Kenton.  Renowned expert, Derek Gow, undertook the long drive up from his 400-acre farm on the far side of Dartmoor in Devon with his extraordinarily well-behaved pup and trays of wildflowers for the banks of the brook.  Derek Gow is credited with re-introducing the beaver to the United Kingdom after a 400-year absence.  While beavers once again live wild on many rivers, their re-introduction into any area is controlled by Natural England on a 5-year license.  Beavers have been re-introduced to London in Ealing and Enfield.  However, if they are re-introduced on the Wealdstone Brook, it would be the first on a London river. 

 

The Wealdstone Brook is heavily culverted and has been subjected to manmade alterations along its course.  It floods heavily and local homes are at risk due to decrepit infrastructure, huge numbers of misconnections by businesses and residents, and over-building.  Despite the efforts of Thames Water, the quality of the water on the Wealdstone Brook is often very poor and can include untreated sewage in flash flooding events.  Local residents are determined to keep it out of their homes.  There are many red risk flooding areas along the course of the brook and one way of achieving a reduction in flooding is to hold water back in parks, gardens and green spaces where the earth can absorb the water before slowly releasing it. 

 

Local residents enjoyed a talk by Derek Gow on the history and habitat of the beaver last Wednesday, 31st January, hosted by Uxendon Manor Primary School.  After the talk, a panel fielded questions about the potential of re-introducing beavers.  There were many concerns, not least how much space would be dedicated to a beaver enclosure, how beavers interact with people and pets, and whether beavers could survive in polluted waters.  Beavers have crepuscular and nocturnal tendencies.  They live in family colonies in many cities globally, as well as in the wild, and mind their own business unless threatened or assaulted, when they will defend themselves.  Beavers are vegetarian: they eat herbaceous plants and roots and, in the winter, the cambium of trees.  They like to plant larders for themselves in the riverbed near where they live.  The channels they excavate out from the river to their food sources irrigate the earth.  They build dams: leaky weirs which slow and purify water and create ponds.   

 

Beavers’ natural behaviours change the landscape, producing new habitat out of an expansion of sunlight and water, which encourages a proliferation of biodiversity.  The Wealdstone Brook in Woodcock Park is designated as a Site of Interest to Nature Conservation (SINC) but over the years its health has declined.  Urban Riverfly Monitoring surveys since the summer have achieved a very poor biodiversity score of between zero and four out of a possible maximum of forty-two.  The brook is almost dead.  However, the recent dedicated activity of the Friends of the Wealdstone Brook, working with Thames Water, has helped improve water quality.  A recent annual survey by the Environment Agency spotted twenty sticklebacks in the park.  This is the first-time fish have been reported in two decades.  The Friends of Woodcock Park aim to see the return of small amphibians, mammals and birds to the brook.  A long-term ambition is to see the secretive woodcock which lives in damp woodland and which gave the park its name, and minute harvest mice that fall asleep in flowers after eating their fill of pollen. 

 

The morning after Derek Gow’s inspirational talk, he presented to pupils from Uxendon Manor Primary School and St Gregory’s Catholic Science College.  The children then planted the wildflowers on the banks of the brook: on the waters’ edge, mid-bank and on the upper bank. A Friends of Woodcock Park Community Gardening event the following Saturday secured biomatting around the young plants to help protect them.  Pupils will monitor the success of these plants across sites in the park.  Ideally, the wildflowers on the banks will establish, bloom and disseminate downstream to enrich biodiversity and contribute to stabilising the banks along the course of the brook.   

 

 

While the final report has not been released yet, early indications are that the Wealdstone Brook in Woodcock Park is suitable as a beaver habitat.  Its incised valley would encourage multiple tiered dams, leaky weirs, along its length.  This would help filter out pollution such that the outflow from the park would be clean water.  Careful planting would process pollutants and clean the water at source in the park too.  The Friends of Woodcock Park have applied for NCIL funding for the second phase of the beaver viability study, which uses computer modelling to investigate possible inundation extents of beaver wetlands if dam sequences were created.  It would analyse the impact on downstream flow regimes and therefore its applicability as a potential natural flood management option.  In an ideal world, we would see a chain of beaver habitats created along the River Brent: currently the most polluted tributary of the River Thames. 

 

Stay up-to-date on this ambitious project via the Friends of Woodcock Park website http://friendsofwoodcockpark.uk/ and social media channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Nextdoor.