A clear, chilly afternoon greeted an enthusiastic team of RBC volunteers to the Camley Street Natural Park in central London recently. This surprisingly tranquil urban nature reserve is brimming with wetland life and sits nestled between two of London’s largest train stations in an area which has witnessed more urban development since the turn of the century than perhaps any other part of London. The reserve, once a coal drop serving Kings Cross and St Pancras stations, is in the middle of an enhancement programme that is designed to attract more local visitors and school groups as well as new avian and amphibious species.
Under guidance from staff from London Wildlife Trust (LWT), Team RBC assigned task group one to don their waders and begin desilting the pond while the second group sharpened their shears and began clearing the decaying vegetation from the pond perimeter. “We expect these new clearer spaces will attract wading birds and other species to nest around the water’s edge” commented LWT’s Petra Sovic-Davies.
Having created a ‘fresh’ compost area from all the wood, grassy and silty deposits along the western flank of the Park, LWT hopes to create an environment for a beetles and bugs to return and flourish.
Looking satisfied at the end of the session, RBC Capital Markets volunteer Clyde Muir commented, “Today’s group of colleagues from three RBC businesses invested twenty hours in a straightforward but highly rewarding site management task which has left us all quite amazed at what we’ve been able to achieve together. Once this latest redevelopment is complete, this park will be a great experiential and educational resource for local school children. We hope that wildlife will soon flourish in this remarkable urban oasis”.
Funding from the 2017 RBC Blue Water Project Grant helps LWT to maintain five key wetlands sites, all prime examples of Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS). The charity also conducts vital tracking and monitoring of different species as natural habitats make way for new housing and works with councils, developers, schools and businesses to raise awareness of the links between urbanisation and the incidences of flooding.
LWT returned the favour and visited RBC’s Thames-side Riverbank House on World Wetlands Day to show colleagues a range of domestic techniques to capture rainfall, sustain plant and insect-life and promote green spaces.