Pockets of change

23 April 2020

By Natasha Goodfellow - writer, editor, plant lover and contributor to Planted’s editorial team. Natasha writes regularly for Garden Illustrated, Elle Decoration and Country Life among others.

Rewind to the spring and summer of 2019 and, most weekends, you would have found me beetling round the capital in search of flowers. Why? I was researching A London Floral – an illustrated map and guide for flower lovers – and my search unearthed some delightful discoveries. There was the crocodile lurking in a water garden outside Lacoste on Duke Street (which sadly didn’t make it into the guide); the stained glass greenhouse by artists Heywood & Condie on Porchester Place (which did); and any number of charming pocket parks and hidden gardens, including a bank of geometric planters planted for pollinators on Elizabeth Street, and Brown Hart Gardens, a tranquil, contemporary space atop a former electricity substation, which I’d walked past hundreds of times and never before noticed.

I’d naively assumed that parks and green spaces were something provided by the council for the enjoyment and benefit of their residents, but research has shown me that this is by no means always the case. Of the 47 free-to-enter open spaces listed in the guide (the rest charge an entrance fee or are florists, flower schools or other botanical attractions), only 15 are truly public – owned and run by local councils. So who owns the rest? The Crown owns the royal parks such as Richmond Park, Regent’s Park and Kensington Gardens etc. Some are owned by the Church (Fulham Palace) or charities or trusts. Others, such as Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Kings Cross and Granary Square, or the aforementioned Brown Hart Gardens, are privately owned.

King’s Cross

There is concern about the growing amount of pseudo-public space (or privately owned public spaces [POPS] as they are known). Public space is necessary for our human rights – it’s the only place we’re legally allowed to protest – but it serves a deeper function too. True public spaces allow us simply to be. We don’t need to be workers or shoppers or diners or consumers. If you want to sit on a bench all day or lie on the grass or and stare at the clouds, no one will stop you. And in a world where increasingly few people have gardens, places like this are essential for our wellbeing, both mental and physical, through the myriad environmental and ecosystemic benefits they should, ideally, provide.

And there’s the rub. In today’s climate, it's no longer enough that green spaces provide a patch of grass, a bandstand and a boating lake. Far more is asked of them. High on this list is the need for biodiversity – both in plants, and, consequently in the insects and wildlife they support. They should help mitigate air and noise pollution and offer an insulating effect from temperature changes. And they should help slow water runoff after rain to help prevent flooding. All of these things mean planting – lots of it – and as many trees as possible.

London’s councils have neither the space nor, after years of austerity budgets, the finances to provide these things on their own, and this can be where private developers come in. In large-scale developments they can create new, world class, green space where barely a tree existed – think of Piet Oudolf’s rivers of perennials at the Olympic Park, Crossrail’s innovative roof garden in Canary Wharf, or of the magnificent Dan Pearson plantings at King’s Cross which also boasts over 200m of green walls, 9,000 sqm of green roofs and 400 newly planted trees (not to mention a highly efficient energy centre and a zero waste to landfill policy). All are vastly more attractive (and diverse) than the semi-industrial wastelands which were there before and are arguably better maintained than many local parks, too. But even in existing developments, landowners are increasingly seeing high quality green space, and the clean air and health benefits which accompany it, as a crucial component, and a key element in making their investments pay.

Crossrail Roof Garden, Canary Wharf

‘Reducing carbon, increasing biodiversity, improving air quality – these interconnected strands all contribute to making a place the best it can be,’ says Elizabeth Randall, Head of Public Spaces at Grosvenor Estates, which owns Brown Hart Gardens and around 25 acres of other green space (part of its 300 acre London property portfolio) in the capital. ‘Making the places we manage gorgeous and delightful is actually what we need to do to keep the estate running. Economically, we think it increases footfall and of course in terms of our retail streets, footfall is very important.’

It’s not just lip service. Working closely with Westminster Council, in the past six years Grosvenor has installed over 240 biodiversity and green space features including 10 bat boxes, 150 bird boxes, six bug houses, four pocket parks, various green roofs and walls and six green lamp posts, as well as bringing 3,000 new plants to Mayfair as part of its forecourt greening initiative. It is opening a forest school in one of its private squares for local state schools to use. It is redeveloping 2.5 hectare Grosvenor Square, currently not much more than grass, plane trees and holly, to be much more inviting for both wildlife and the community alike, and commissions art installations which explore our links to nature and the environment, including Yinka Ilori’s In Plants We Trust in Mount Street Gardens and a piece by Rachel Champion on the corner of Berkeley Square planted to reduce air pollution.

Grosvenor Estates

Though they may bring economic benefits, these actions are not solely driven by them. Indeed, Grosvenor’s sustainability strategy is streets ahead of the government’s own, committing to achieving net zero carbon emissions, zero waste and a significant net biodiversity gain by 2030, and achieving water neutrality and carbon positivity by 2050.  

Likewise, the Crown Estate pledges to be a net zero business by 2030 and climate positive thereafter, while Great Portland Estates, another significant landowner, has vowed to reduce operational carbon emissions from its existing buildings in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, and also funds various environmental schemes including Bankside Open Spaces Trust and the London Wildlife Trust. Along with other landowners, including Grosvenor, they form Wild West End, an initiative working in partnership with the Greater London Authority and the London Wildlife Trust to increase the area’s biodiversity and ecological connectivity.

 ‘It’s my ambition that our streets should be as gorgeous to walk along as the High Line in New York,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You should want to walk just for the sheer joy of it.’ Clearly, not all developers will share her thoughts. Not all will have such lofty environmental goals, and though well designed spaces may indeed be a draw, planting is more costly to maintain than paving or water fountains and needs a longer term approach. But the fact that some companies are taking the initiative and trying to make a difference, and have the means to do so is, in these difficult times, surely something to be applauded.

Ends

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