Vision

Enhancing biodiversity in the West End of London

The West End’s largest property owners are working together to encourage birds, bees and bats back into this iconic area of London, and create greater connections with nature for residents, visitors and workers to enjoy. Wild West End is a unique partnership between The Crown Estate, Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, The Portman Estate, Howard de Walden and Shaftesbury.

Encouraging wildlife into the West End

Wild West End is an exciting opportunity to demonstrate the positive impact of urban green infrastructure, and with clear measurement strategies in place, it also offers great research potential.

Although London already has significant pockets of green space, connections between these spaces are equally important for wildlife. In recent years common species have been in decline, so more work is needed to protect and support London’s wildlife.

Establishing a green corridor

Wild West End is creating green stepping stones between the existing areas of surrounding parkland, through a combination of green roofs, green walls, planters, street trees, flower boxes and pop-up spaces. As a priority, we’re looking to attract the Black Redstart and the House Sparrow, once common in London.

Creating a better place to live, work and visit

There is increasing evidence that links access to green space to socio-economic factors, including better social cohesion, lower stress, and higher levels of satisfaction and wellbeing. Wild West End will benefit not just wildlife and the environment, but all those who come to the area whether it is to live, work, study or simply visit.

Wild West End is endorsed by strategic partners London Wildlife Trust and Greater London Authority, and supported by technical partner Arup.

Through our shared vision, we aim to:

Improve the wellbeing of residents, workers and visitors by increasing connections to green space and nature and contributing to improvements in local air quality
Enhance biodiversity and ecological connectivity
Raise awareness and promote the benefits of green infrastructure to inspire others to participate and create similar initiatives.

To achieve our vision, we will:

Run Wild West End and individual partner community and occupier greening projects
Promote access to local green space
Improve walking/cycling connections between green spaces through way-finding
Establish 2016/17 baseline area and condition of green space
Target establishment of new areas of green space and habitat structures
Target and maintain multi-functional value of new and existing green space. Green space to deliver a minimum of two functions (refer value table).
Contribute to growth of green corridor (corridor defined as 100 square metres of green space every 100m)
Establish baseline of birds and bats in the area and target an observed increase
Promote value of green infrastructure at Wild West End partner events
Promote green infrastructure via website, media and external events
Collate data on value of green infrastructure to support the business case
Provide public access to Wild West End green space data.