27 May 2009

Living Water reaches Bexley

Froglife has received funding from the Cory Ibstock Environmental Trust to extend its London Living Water project into the London Borough of Bexley, in south east London.

The project will focus on habitat creation and improvement work needed at Foots Cray Meadows which is a 97 hectare park and open green-space; a rolling landscape of ancient woodland and wildflower meadows, with the River Cray at its heart.

The site has records of Smooth Newt, Common Frog, Common Toad, and Grass Snake. In addition Great crested newts have recently been rediscovered at the site.

In the coming months Froglife will be working in partnership with the London Borough of Bexley and other local stakeholders to develop a programme of habitat work that will greatly improve the site's biodiversity value - especially for amphibians and reptiles - within the local landscape.

Froglife will be creating a more diverse mosaic of standing water and associated wetland habitat; restoring ditches, enhancing an existing old pond and creating new ponds. The work will help improve the connectivity of habitats that exist on the site, helping to create wildlife corridors.

This exciting work will also contribute to the London Standing Water Biodiversity Habitat Action Plan for which Froglife is the lead partner.

For more information and an interactive map of Froglife's work in London: www.froglife.org/london/london_map.htm


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

All good projects. How about some work in the North. London and the near counties always seem to get the funds. How about a scheme in Manchester, Carlisle, Liverpool etc

Jules said...

A very good point! We have recently received funding for a Living Water project in Glasgow (our first in Scotland) and we hope that other projects will follow in other parts of the UK.

Thanks, The Froglife Team

Shelley said...

This is wonderful news! Although we're a little further out, in Dartford, Footscray Meadows was a favourite haunt of mine as a teenager and I'm delighted to hear both of the improvements to be made and of the presence of great crested newts.