Our community is to benefit from a Lambeth Council and Mayor of London initiative to improve green spaces in urban areas.

Lambeth has been awarded £440,000 as part of Sadiq Khan’s rewilding initiative which will help provide further funding for the Council’s Bee Roads initiative. This ambitious programme is aimed at converting ten miles of roadside land, including roundabouts and verges of roads, into wildflower mini-meadows which will provide habitats for wildlife including butterflies, bumble-bees and other pollinators.

The roundabout on Knatchbull Road will be a major beneficiary of this scheme. At Lambeth’s Council meeting in January, Cllr Paul Gadsby and Cllr Annie Gallop received confirmation that the site had been chosen as part of the Bee Roads project.

Local Councillors have now asked Lambeth Council to deliver additional improvements as part of the project, including removing unsightly railings around the roundabout.

Cllr Paul Gadsby and Cllr Annie Gallop said:

“We have been campaigning for many years for more funding to be put into local greening and community gardening projects which really enhance the local neighbourhood for everyone, as well as improve local wildlife habitats. We have seen a lot of success in this area, including more projects taking off on our estates, which have been lead directly by residents.

“The Knatchbull Road projects is a welcome addition to the Bees Road scheme, and we are now pressing for this scheme to be expanded to include general improvements to the pavements surrounding the roundabout. We also want to see more of these projects across Myatt’s Fields.”

The “Bee Roads” scheme is part of the Mayor’s Green New Deal strategy which invests in projects that improve the capital’s resilience to climate change.

Volunteers are being encouraged to sign up to work on Bee Roads. More details of the Mayor’s strategy can be found here.