Parks and Green Spaces

Much of the character of the London Borough of Camden comes from its parks and green spaces, from the tree lined squares in the south, to the wide-open space of Hampstead Heath in the north. These areas are extremely important, not just for the wildlife they currently support, but as areas available to all where nature can be experienced.

Camden Council manages over 75 parks covering 47 hectares and over 300 housing estates covering over 40 hectares of green space, including a number of green roofs There are around 100 parks of various size in Camden, covering an area of approximately 400 hectares, though this is not evenly distributed – around two-thirds of this area is Hampstead Heath managed by the City of London Corporation. Other significant areas are managed by The Royal Parks and the Universities. Some of these areas, like the Heath, nature reserves and some of our parks, are rich in wildlife. Others less so.

Camden Council adopts conservation-led management across the green spaces it manages. The intention with conservation led maintenance is to decrease high intensity, high cost maintenance tasks, such as regular grass cutting and adopt a more sustainable, more cost effective biodiversity friendly maintenance approach. These changes enable our green spaces to become more naturalised and help to improve ecological processes, such as pollination.Changes to planting and management are assessed against a ‘nature rating’, and where practical, high intensity management of grass, hedges, bedding and rose beds is changed to other more sustainable planting and or management techniques that increase biodiversity, such as relaxed grass-mowing regimes, creation of meadow areas, and planting wildlife-friendly species. These decisions are weighed up against site location and suitability, resident input, budgets and other Council objectives, to ensure the best possible outcome for both biodiversity and Camden’s residents.

These changes have led to an increase in the area and numbers of features of value to wildlife, such as a greater diversity of grass sward heights and more pollinator friendly planting. This approach has also supported Camden residents and volunteers to get involved with gardening and improving their access to nature.

Since 2017, approximately 18% of frequently cut grass has been changed to relaxed mowing or meadow areas and 20% of Rose beds were changed to more sustainable planting. This approach is ongoing, and has helped to deliver more sustainable and biodiverse green spaces across Camden. As of Jan 2021, there are 6 hectares of relaxed mowing and meadow areas across Camden Council managed green spaces and 1.6km of conservation hedgerows.

Parks were planned for people – gardens for the gardenless – recognising that green spaces were good for us, but wildlife has always needed them too, and needs them now more than ever. We must learn to share our spaces with wildlife, making our green spaces more natural and making our lives a bit wilder.