Neighbourhoods Green - Spaces for Nature

Client: Natural England

Date: 2005 - 2006

ECL was commissioned by English Nature to research and prepare guidance for the Neighbourhoods Green Project. Neighbourhoods Green highlights the importance of green spaces for the residents of social housing, and raises issues of quality of design, management and safe use with social housing providers.

Spaces for Nature details basic and easy to implement guidance in order to provide:

• Habitat enhancements within new and existing housing estates to encourage a range of locally common wildlife.

• Designs for wildlife that can be met from existing grounds maintenance budgets, and created and maintained with existing skills.

Case studies on a variety of schemes were used to illustrate the range of projects being carried out in social housing and to describe the issues that affect the success of these projects and how to account for these effectively. Examples within London included:

• Peabody Trust Barnwell Estate, Camberwell.
• Metropolitan Housing Trust’s canal-side developments, Hackney.
• Neilson Terry Court, Brixton, London Borough of Lambeth.

Upper Thames Estuary Integrated Habitat Classification

Client: The Environment Agency (Thames Region)

Date: 2005

As part of the ecological work required to implement the EU Water Framework Directive, the Environment Agency is required to classify and monitor habitats within the Thames estuary as a whole.

ECL produced a study of the inter-tidal plant communities of the foreshore and river frontage habitats of the upper Thames Estuary.

Our botanists surveyed 32 km of river bank during the summer of 2005. Our GIS team collated and mapped the survey data using MapInfo to link survey points to the database containing quadrat and assemblage data.

The study used statistical methods to identify plant assemblages and relate their occurrence to a range of environmental variables. The work contributes to an Integrated Habitat Classification for the entire Estuary though the identification of new plant communities present in the upper estuary only.