Rewilding London

I am proud of London for rewilding. This shows we are a mature and responsible community. All life forms have a right to survival. Humans have decided they own every inch, and fenced it all off. We need to share. We should all have ponds and wildflowers in our gardens. The whole job of rewilding should not just be left to the authorities. If the authorities do the large scale rewilding and we all do the small scale, then that works well together. x

London has great potential for re-wilding. The combined trees and gardens in London make it comparable to many national parks and it is a major stopover for migrating birds. Sadly, pollution is a major barrier to insect life, but a trend in wilder planting schemes in gardens is counter-acting this to some degree. There are many big re-wilding projects we could all engage in, but there are also smaller things we could do that would have a notable impact. Wildlife corridors can be created to allow animals like Hedgehogs and Toads to move freely between gardens. This really only requires a small aperture at the base of a fence on each side of the garden that will not impact your privacy or enjoyment of your garden. Having a good number of ponds in a neighbourhood is a huge boon for amphibians and other species, including insects and birds. Encouragement towards stopping pesticide use would be huge. I myself have stopped this and, while you have to hold your nerve a little bit, within just a year or so the pests are kept under control by Ladybirds, Hoverflies and Lacewings. In turn, those insects then bring in a lot more bird-life and so on. Slugs and snails are the key source of food for Hedgehogs, Slow worms,Toads and Song thrushes. If we could get these species back in our gardens by improved access and, perhaps, re-introduction then slugs will be kept under control. We can also put up birdboxes (including swift boxes under the eaves), birdbaths and feeders, batboxes and plant more trees. All of these small acts will add up to a lot if we can do this across whole streets rather than in too fragmented a fashion. Bigger projects might focus on reducing the number of cars, having street community gardens, street trees and planting up all front gardens.

The London Plan and Local Plans need to include planning policies to prevent natural soft surface being replaced with hard surface and plastic lawns and garden buildings.

Greater protection to prevent trees from being felled and pollarded (including at the behest of insurance companies) is urgently needed, along with a complete ban on garden pesticides and leaf blowers.

Agree with comment below about incorrect questions. It would have been more helpful to have asked about the level of support for increasing nature. It is not clear whether the questions on anxiety relate to concerns over lack of nature or the impact of creating new nature areas.

Some questions in sections 5 & 6 of the survey seem to be asked the wrong way round. For example, I am not worried at all about an increase in wildlife, which I would welcome, but am very worried about a decrease, which the survey did not ask about. Unfortunately, there was not a comments section to clarify this.

You need to harness & collaborate with local activists & enthusiasts. The community-led recovery plan is very good on this, especially policy 29 on Biodiversity Review Panels http://JustSpace.org.uk/recovery

Don't give any more power to councils: they are more likely to sell sites to developers than pursue rewilding or any other green uses.

One of the major reasons for rewilding in London and other urban centres is to mitigate the effects of rising temperatures in cities. If more trees were planted in existing parks (Hyde Park, for example) and on streets, it could bring the temperature down by as much as 10 degrees. Trees also help with air quality. I would not be adverse to seeing areas of existing parks set aside for animals/plants only. People do not have to sit/walk all over every green space we have. I think letting wasteland and some brownfield sites revert to scrub is not a bad thing.

Why no mention of Metropolitan Open Land in the survey? It's supposed to have the same level of protection as the Metropolitan Green Belt, but in my area (SE22) it's being handed over to developers. The survey needs to address the actions that are actively undermining rewilding, many of which have budgets behind them that make the mayor's £600,000 to fund rewilding projects look like a bottle of evian in an ocean of sewage - which is what it is.

The type of rewilding that might work well in London, probably most important and perhaps easiest to accomplish quickly is to support activities to increase and preserve insects especially pollinating insects and solitary bees. They are often forgotten yet essential in the food chain, soil improvement and a suitable balance of small eco niches.

Supporting community gardens (a) to grow food, herbs and those attractive to pollinators and (b) in the process to help people improve their understanding of what lies behind the need for various rewilding activities. It might even help people improve their understanding of why litter, especially waste food litter is environmentally undesirable and bad for public health in attracting rats and supporting urban fox populations.

I feel this is going to be yet another innitiative where the supporters are going to be very vocal and very demanding that their opinions are correct and need to be heeded while anyone with concerns or queries about a) how it's going to be done, and b) what the end result will look like; will be shouted down as uneducated people who don't understand the issue, and don't quite get the situation we're in because someone has declared a "climate emergency".

The survey is quite typical of most recent ones in that it gave very little chance for respondents to give an actual opinion, you could only tick boxes, you couldn't explain what you were thinking and why you have those thoughts and opinions. A lot of the comments seem to be quite militant in insisting that we need to curtail people's individual property rights to fit a one-size fits all diktat on what NEEDS TO BE DONE; because planning officers have obviously been shown to be balanced in their approach and refuse to indulge in mission creep away from their actual job description.

A lot of the re-wilding initiatives I've seen in London seem to be actively about taking away the green spaces from the public in a case of look but don't touch, so people will actually be losing the ability to walk around in and enjoy green spaces that they currently have as certain areas are cordoned off to fulfill the unelected rewiling agenda.

I wonder where London's foxes fit in with the rewilding agenda, they seem to be a marmite topic when it comes to discussions in the suburbs.

Wild flower meadows are definitely a great way to attract the pollinators and replacing some of the neat flower beds with more bee friendly flowers 🌸

We need massive rewilding to halt the decline of biodiversity and to fight climate change. I’d encourage anyone looking for more information about rewilding to search for the Knepp Estate, where rewilding is proving super successful for people and nature.

Rewilding can be good economically (e.g. less mowing of public spaces, beavers ecotourism), good for wildlife, good for climate change, good for mental and physical health - what’s not to like!

Yes - we do need to rewild London. We need many more street trees and to stop people paving over front gardens and ripping out hedges.
We need to ban plastic grass.
We need bird boxes, swift boxes, bat boxes everywhere.
All London boroughs should stop mowing until late summer so wildflowers can grow and set seed.
We should work with schools so children can grow up understanding and appreciating rewilding.
Can I make a special plea for Oxleas and Shepherdsleas Woods which are ancient woodlands but are in very poor condition and really need intervention.
Green roofs.
Need to win hearts and minds so people stop worrying about things not looking neat and tidy.
London can really do something about declining insect populations. About climate change mitigation. The opportunities are huge and really exciting - be bold!

Bring in stricter planning laws to stop people excessively pruning trees

I love the idea of rewilding and its starting to happen everywhere. However it still needs to be managed. Paths / tracks into areas that have been allowed to wild so everyone can enjoy in a safe and accessible way. Maintenance is really important so maybe community groups can be given small grants to take ownership of small areas of wilding, particularly those on streets and pavements. Otherwise they do just become ugly, dangerous and taken over by bindweed, benefitting no one. Maintaining safe paths between wilding enables everyone to enjoy in a safe way. For example Wanstead Flats parkrun. Parts of the route are overgrown with unmown grasses on uneven surfaces. Just maintain this section so people can enjoy running in a beautiful area and this also stops people widening the path to try and find a more accessible section to run on.

A for could be done in small spaces.
Front gardens matter. Domestic gardens account for about 25% of urban space. Urban plants and trees help cool the air in summer and provide shelter and insulation in winter. They reduce the risk of flooding by intercepting rain, slowing the run-off and reducing pressure on drains. They contribute to mental and physical health. Domestic gardens are among Britain’s key nature reserves.
While one person may have only a small garden, a whole street’s worth adds up to a considerable amount of green space…. Let’s suppose that every front garden has at least a hedge.