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Hopes are high for another successful Skylark breeding season on Wanstead Flats.

“There appears to be a minimum of seven birds and at least three singing males. Assuming these males pair up, we are hopeful that the females will lay eggs and that these will successfully hatch, with the young going on to join the local population,” said Tim Harris of the Wren Wildlife Group.

Last year, three pairs of Skylarks raised four young on the Flats, which has been partially roped off to help reduce disturbance to the ground-nesting birds.

Councillor Jo Blackman, Cabinet Member for Environment and Sustainability, shares her journey of reconnecting with nature through local volunteer conservation work

The state of the world, degradation of the environment and climate doom can leave us feeling anxious and frustrated. Our busy lives and over-exposure to the digital world can also take its toll on our stress levels and mental health. But it is well documented that connecting to the environment can decrease stress and improve your mental health. Being in nature brings benefits, as does the physical exercise of the activity we undertake there. 

Whilst I spend a lot of time working on environmental policy as cabinet member for the environment on Redbridge Council, and through my work with environmental charities, too little of my time is spent actually in the environment. So, I recently dedicated two days to help two charities with local conservation work. 

I spent a day in waders with the river charity Thames21, an organisation helping to bring stakeholders together to look after our rivers. We helped enhance the habitat in the River Roding adjacent to Wanstead Park by installing deflectors, which are basically logs secured to the riverbed, providing a home for wildlife and slowing the flow of the river. I spent another day on dry land helping the Epping Forest Heritage Trust (where I am a trustee) conserve the acid grasslands – which also provide a vital habitat for nature – by removing saplings and clearing bramble. 

On both days we were joined by volunteers, some local and some from further afield, a mix of ages, backgrounds and professions. All shared the common desire to get out from behind their desks and do something to help the environment. Very few of us had any previous conservation experience and both charities provided all the equipment and advice needed. Whilst the work would have been very slow going individually, as a group, we made good progress. After several hours, we were able to look proudly at the contribution we had made to conserving these important spaces. It gave me fresh insights into the challenges facing nature in our urban environment – including climate change, litter, invasive species and pollution. And it renewed my resolve to do all I can in my work as a councillor, as well as with charities, to preserve and enhance our environment.

Many companies allow staff to spend one or two days a year volunteering, though many people don’t take advantage of this. There are also opportunities to volunteer with Vision in the Roding Valley and other Redbridge parks as part of their conservation work. And for those who can’t devote a whole day, there are plenty of opportunities locally to spend an hour or two helping out – with our amazing community gardeners or litter pickers.

Jo Blackman is Labour councillor for Wanstead Village ward.

For more information on conservation volunteering, follow the links below:

Epping Forest Heritage Trust

Thames21

Vision RCL

Litter picking sessions also take place in Wanstead on the third Saturday of each month. For more information, email Jo.Blackman@redbridge.gov.uk

Live animals will be on show in Wanstead Park next month as part of the annual Wanstead Wildlife Weekend.

“We have booked an exciting display from a company with a good reputation for animal welfare. They will be showing live British wildlife, such as rodents, a barn owl, a snake, invasive marsh frogs and even a rescue hedgehog,” said a Wren Wildlife Group spokesperson.

Taking place on 22 and 23 June, the weekend of free events will also include bushcraft workshops, a spider hunt and pond dipping.

For more information, visit wrengroup.org.uk

This year’s Wanstead Festival will take place on 15 September.

Exhibitors, performers and caterers are invited to apply to take part in the annual community event. “This popular event attracts thousands of people, who come together to enjoy a fun-filled day on Christchurch Green. Don’t miss out on this great opportunity to showcase your business,” said a spokesperson for Vision RCL.

Visit wnstd.com/festival

With winter behind us, many will be tempted to mow, strim, cut back and tidy their gardens. But Wanstead resident Karen Myers explains why you should resist and join in with No Mow May 

A recent survey by the charity Buglife found the UK’s flying insect population has declined by as much as 60% in the last 20 years, and scientists have confirmed land-dwelling insect populations continue to collapse by around 9% every decade. This freefall in the mainstay of our ecosystem is due to a variety of reasons, including climate change, intensive farming methods, pesticide use in parks, on kerbsides and in private gardens, habitat loss and a new trend to carpet gardens in plastic grass.

So, what can we do to reverse this worrying decline and, in some cases, the complete extinction of our beautiful buzzing friends? The answer is, plenty! If you have some outside space, a balcony or even a window ledge for flowers, you can make a real difference. Studies tell us that short, clipped and mown monoculture lawns, which have been popular for so long, are actually a barren wasteland for insects. By allowing some areas of your grass to grow longer, you will be providing shelter and important early food sources for a variety of pollinators. Perhaps also consider making part of your lawn into an area for wild flowers. This will reward you with a stunning show of colour, as well as attracting a wide range of insects. It is about this time that bees and other pollinators emerge from a long winter of hibernation, and they are absolutely starving – areas of grass left to grow give opportunities for daisies, clover and dandelions, which are not only beautiful but also provide sustenance for insects. 

Have you noticed, in a tucked away area on the eastbound platform at Snaresbrook Station, a pile of logs for a beetle shelter? Amongst many other benefits for nature, this small act of human kindness has encouraged a pair of beautiful Chaffinches to regularly visit the platform. Replicated across Wanstead gardens, this simple deed could provide the easy win of a plentiful food source for birds. 

Hedgehogs occasionally slumber through summer days in long grass, so you could also be providing a safe haven for some of Wanstead’s few precious colonies of hogs. Do always take care to check first when strimming or mowing as hedgehogs do not run away when they sense danger, they just curl up. 

If you do decide to help the bees, butterflies and other insects this May (and hopefully in June onwards), please steer clear of using pesticides and choose plants for your beds or balconies that are pollinator-friendly, such as Dog Rose (Rosa canina), Meadow Cranesbill (Geranium pratense) and English Lavender (Lavendula angustifolia).

If we all pulled together, Wanstead gardens could provide a vital safe haven for our local insect population and wildlife in general. We just need to relax a little and share our space with nature. Happy gardening everyone!

For more information on No Mow May, visit wnstd.com/nomow

A petition urging Wetherspoons not to sell The George in Wanstead has received widespread support.

It follows confirmation the historic venue is on the market. “The George is currently under offer but will remain open and trading as a Wetherspoons pub until it is sold,” said a spokesperson for the pub chain, which has run the site since April 1992.

Amidst rumours the venue could be turned into a gastropub, many signing the petition are fearful of losing an affordable community asset. “The George is a local landmark, offering excellent food and drink at reasonable prices. It offers a haven for people through the generations. The fact 2,000-plus people have signed the petition so far shows the sense of feeling in the community. Wanstead will be a poorer place if The George closes, so I urge Wetherspoons to think again about selling,” said Councillor Paul Donovan.

Visit wnstd.com/savethegeorge

To mark Local and Community History Month in May, the Friends of St Gabriel’s are organising an event to explore the wartime history of Aldersbrook. Georgina Brewis reports. Image shows Wanstead Flats during a German air raid, painted in 1916 by JH Bull

As part of ongoing fundraising aimed at fully restoring St Gabriel’s Church hall in time for the centenary of its 1927 opening, we’ve turned to history to help local residents understand the significance of the church hall as a community and social space that is worth preserving for another 100 years.

We were thrilled when over 200 people attended our Who Do We Think We Are? event in November 2023. Local PhD student Jane Skelding used census data to explore the social history of the Aldersbrook and Lake House estates. The event sparked the idea of creating an Aldersbrook and Lake House heritage scheme, which we will tell you more about in a future issue. At that event, the Friends of St Gabriel’s also received an offer from trainee archivist Becky Darnill to catalogue and arrange the church archive, which had been sadly neglected, a project that has now been completed. Becky explains: “The most interesting things I’ve found are letters from the 1910s discussing the funding and building of the new church and records of early social clubs and societies. In the 1970s, there was even a competition for an Aldersbrook summer queen. The documents show how the church has been at the heart of the Aldersbrook community since the Edwardian era.”

For our next event, local historians Mark Gorman and Peter Williams of Leyton and Leytonstone Historical Society will give an illustrated talk about Wanstead Flats and Aldersbrook at war. I asked Mark and Peter what we can expect from the talk: “Wanstead Flats has been used for military purposes for well over 200 years. In the 19th century, local volunteer regiments put on large-scale mock battles, sometimes in front of the King! In the 20th century, the two world wars saw large-scale installations on the Flats, and our talk will guide you through this militarisation.”

Mark and Peter will also discuss the prisoner of war camps that housed several hundred Italians and Germans in huts and tents during the 1940s. They will bring along small artefacts associated with the wartime Flats. 

If you know where to look, you can still see various traces of the military activity on the Flats, from anti-aircraft rocket systems and a gas decontamination building to a later Cold War bunker. Unfortunately, as a consequence of this military presence, the residential areas of Aldersbrook and Lake House suffered considerable bomb damage in WWII.

After the war, East Ham and West Ham councils were allowed to erect some prefabricated houses on parts of the Flats as temporary accommodation, but further development was strongly resisted by local people. This activism helped preserve the Flats as an important public open space.

The Wanstead Flats at War event will take place at St Gabriel’s Church on 11 May from 4pm (tickets: £5; talk starts at 5pm). Visit wnstd.com/flatsatwar

Residents are reminded that photo ID will be required to vote in next month’s elections.

An original passport, driving licence, Blue Badge, older person’s bus pass or disabled person’s bus pass are among the accepted forms of identification. “If you don’t have an accepted photo ID, you can apply for a free Voter Authority Certificate. The deadline to apply for this is 24 April,” said a Redbridge Council spokesperson.

Visit wnstd.com/voteid

A statement from the Wren Wildlife Group about the bluebells in Wanstead Park:

“We have worked hard lining the paths with logs, which make it clear where people should walk to enjoy the bluebell vista. People often don’t realise they are damaging the plants when they tread on the leaves – next year’s growth will be impacted. Peak flowering time is at the end of April, and Chalet Wood will get very crowded, so visitors should be aware there are other areas in the park which have lots of bluebells, so be adventurous and find them!”

Barts Health Trust has caused concern over the continuation of bed-based end-of-life care facilities in the new Whipps Cross Hospital.

“At this time, the analysis of data does not support re-providing the current bed-based services of the Margaret Centre in the new facility.” The statement also highlights that it is “too soon to make firm recommendations” and a decision on the Margaret Centre’s future is pending. The first phase of construction for the new hospital is expected to begin this summer.

Visit wnstd.com/mcfuture

Art Group Wanstead member Sonia Cudd reflects on the inspiration that Wanstead Park’s annual bluebell display brings

I am inspired by all things beautiful, namely the elegant and yet goofy greyhound, my friend’s cat and practically anything with four legs. And more recently, Wanstead’s bluebells. My art was a way to relax from my stressful accountant’s day job. You could say I was a ‘creative accountant’, though the creativity was strictly reserved for my art! 

Since being made redundant in April 2021, I have been fortunate to live my dream of becoming a full-time artist, which is wonderful and exciting. I opened an Etsy shop which started out featuring original, limited edition linocuts of greyhounds. Over the past few years, I have been revisiting different mediums, including screenprinting, which enabled me to produce ’functional art’ such as my Wanstead bluebell tote bags and a few prototype tea towels, which were on display at Wanstead Library last November. 

I have been a member of Art Group Wanstead for a few years now and took part in last year’s bluebell art fair, for which I created my first bluebell piece, an ambitious watercolour wash with a multi-screenprint printed onto gorgeous A3 handmade paper. Unfortunately – after my strict quality control – only a few of the planned edition of 30 escaped my studio recycling bin! All was not lost as I took photos of the survivors and created a new series of bluebell digital art. 

The iconic Wanstead bluebells are also the subject of my first series of artwork for 2024. Having booked the Wanstead Library showcase for the end of February, I set myself a challenge to create new art using different mediums: oils, watercolours, acrylics, linocut prints and digital art.

I wanted to create art that represents what the bluebells mean to me and the impact they have on the emotion and mood for so many locals who visit them. The bluebell wood is such a magical place and I, like so many others, have such wonderful memories of visiting them with loved ones.

I worked throughout the sometimes wet and dreary months of January and February, looking forward to spring and new beginnings as the bluebells reappear and delight as they do year after year. I love the similarities between these delicate and yet resilient flowers and my other passion, the rescue greyhound. This may seem a very random mix, but to me, both are such things of beauty – they just need a little care and our protection to enable them to bring joy and wonder into our lives.

Sonia will have a stall at the Local Makers Market at Christ Church hall on 18 May. 

To view more of Sonia’s art work, visit gracecuddleart.com

Skylarks successfully bred on Wanstead Flats last year, helped by temporary fencing to prevent disturbance to these ground-nesting birds. Please respect the fence again this year, says Mary Holden

Wanstead Flats has always been known for its iconic ground-nesting Skylarks, but in recent years, numbers have fallen. During the 2012 Olympics, a temporary police base was installed on the fairground site, east of Centre Road, and in the following years, no Skylarks nested in that area, although several pairs continued to breed among the anthills on the other side of the road. These birds represent the closest population of breeding Skylarks to the centre of London.

Numbers have been in decline nationally for decades due to various factors, including loss of habitat. The future for the Wanstead Flats birds looked bleak. In 2020, no Skylarks bred successfully on the Flats and our other ground-nesting bird, the Meadow Pipit, also stopped breeding. Drastic action was needed to prevent the Skylarks from disappearing. The Wren Wildlife and Conservation Group, in conjunction with the City of London Corporation, which owns and manages the land, were determined to try and protect numbers locally.

So, in 2021 and each year since, temporary fencing has been erected around two areas of the Flats between March and the end of August. This has meant that the birds – whose eggs and chicks are particularly vulnerable to disturbance – have been protected from heavy human and canine footfall during the nesting season. This protection paid off handsomely last year with at least four young birds fledging – the best breeding success for quite a few years.

We hope the Skylarks repeat that success this year and that we will begin to see the recolonisation of more areas of the Flats.

In order to reduce the use of single-use plastic fencing, the City of London Corporation has this year been experimenting with blue rope to demarcate the two areas, and people are politely being asked to keep out and also to keep their dogs on a lead between Centre Road and the football pitches.

The reaction of walkers to the new ropes has generally been very positive and the vast majority of people are willing to keep out to protect the nesting birds. But like me, many people are annoyed and perplexed by those that wish to keep traversing the area. A person or persons so far unknown have been vandalising the ropes, meaning they had to be totally replaced several times last month.

Please respect the temporary fencing: the future of our Skylarks, which bring local people and visitors alike so much joy every spring and summer, may depend on it. If you see the rope being vandalised, please report it to the police by phoning 101.

For more information about the Wren Wildlife Group, visit wrengroup.org.uk