Learn about our Society’s partnership with local green space managers to create the Camden Nature Corridor, reaching from Hampstead Heath southward into Camden neighbourhoods. Creating one of London’s new “nature recovery networks”, the Corridor will make nature on the Heath more resilient to growing pressure from people and climate change, while bringing health-enhancing wildlife experiences to residents in some of the most nature-poor parts of our Borough. if you would like to show your support for the corridor and receive updates, please sign up using the form on this page.
Click here for a summary of the project (it will open as a PDF in a new tab) or read on below…
Camden Nature Corridor
The Camden Nature Corridor is a plan to improve and extend nature-rich green spaces in Camden and to bring their benefits to the doorsteps of residents in nature-poor areas. It will do this by improving five of Camden’s Sites of Interest for Nature Conservation (SINCs) and linking them through new “green infrastructure” in planned housing development.
This will create a corridor of largely accessible woodland, ponds, hedgerow and meadow, extending the rich biodiversity of Hampstead Heath into residential areas to the south. More nature in urban neighbourhoods will improve our well-being and quality of life and, at the same time, make our local biodiversity richer and more resilient to urban growth and climate change. Working across Camden’s pressing demands for both better housing and nature restoration, this is a unique opportunity to deliver on both.
The Corridor
Five of Camden’s protected SINCs lie in a line from Hampstead Heath into Kentish Town, as shown below, each under different management. The largest is Hampstead Heath itself, central London’s most biodiversity-rich open space.
Stretching below the southeast corner of the Heath along railway edges are a series of smaller SINCs. These include the longstanding, community-managed Mortimer Terrace Nature Reserve, the Kentish Town City Farm, Britain’s oldest urban farm, the Gospel Oak Railway Sidings meadows and woodland managed by Network Rail, and Talacre Town Green, an important local recreational space that has recently earned SINC status with its development of meadow and hedgerow habitats. Several of these SINCs already provide nature education activities for local residents and schools.
In between, and bordering, these SINCs lie central Camden’s three priority sites for housing and business development, Murphy’s Yard, Regis Road and West Kentish Town Estate.
Approximately 2000 new homes are planned for these sites in the coming decade. Because of their proximity to these nature reserves, these developments could easily degrade nature in these SINCs, through overshading, noise and light pollution, and creating barriers to wildlife movement.
Or they could do the opposite, by creating modest strips of protected natural habitat along railsides and across developments that would protect and better connect SINCs. Recent studies have shown that distinctive wildlife on Hampstead Heath, including hedgehogs, woodpeckers, thrushes, butterflies and frogs, can colonize the SINCs to the South, if these habitats can be protected and improved.
As the figure suggests, wildlife increasing in these joined-up SINC habitats would begin to visit existing and new gardens and green spaces around, broadening the corridor into nearby neighbourhoods, enhancing nature experiences on our doorsteps. With their improved and extended natural habitats, our SINCs would be even better places to deliver nature education services that our schools and communities already enjoy.
An urgent need
UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, its animals and plants have decreased by 20% since the 1970s and one in six British species are at risk of extinction. Climate change is predicted to make this worse. Nature in urban areas is particularly threatened.
In cities, nature-rich green spaces support “ecosystem services” like clean water and air, and reduce the impact of increasing flooding, pollution and extreme temperatures.
Restoring nature also supports well-being. Science has shown that time spent in nature-rich green spaces, and even birdsong, can improve mental health.
A unique opportunity
The planned development across Murphy’s Yard, Regis Road and West Kentish Town Estate provides a once in a generation opportunity to restore nature in Camden. New development gives us the best opportunity to set aside critical space for nature. Camden has already identified SINCS as “stepping stones” for developing the Nature Recovery Networks prioritized in its 2023 Biodiversity Action Plan.
Linked by green infrastructure in new development, this line of SINCs can create a significant Camden nature recovery network. New residents in future housing will benefit, as will current residents in surrounding areas. Dartmouth Park, Kentish Town and Gospel Oak and Haverstock communities have all prioritized green corridors in their Neighbourhood Development Plans and Visions.
What needs to be done?
The plan for a Camden Nature Corridor has been developed by several local organizations, including the Heath & Hampstead Society, City of London, Mortimer Terrace Nature Reserve, Kentish Town City Farm, and Friends of Talacre Town Green. It has been endorsed by local Neighbourhood Forums and submitted in 2024 to the London Borough of Camden through the Local Plan process.
Working with our consortium, Network Rail are also planning improvement of their railside SINC area in the proposed Corridor.
Because the full development of the Corridor will depend on the timing of development for three future Camden Site Allocations, a precise timeline cannot be given. We propose instead three activities, each of which will produce a stand-alone, nature-positive community outcome. Together, they will deliver the Camden Nature Corridor.
Improving natural habitats in SINCs
Within their existing boundaries, all five SINCs need to be improved to support more biodiversity and to be more resilient to surrounding future development and the effects of climate change. This means restoring degraded areas through woodland management, planting of native trees, shrubs and meadows, creating of new habitats like ponds and wetland, and controlling invasive alien plants.
Managers of each SINC are developing plans for this with the assistance of conservation experts. Grant funding for improvements and community engagement for maintaining nature-rich spaces will be needed and sought.
Establishing appropriate green infrastructure in future development on Site Allocations
To protect and connect SINCs, the development of Murphy’s Yard, Regis Road and West Kentish Town Estate needs to incorporate modest, nature-rich spaces.
Progress towards this objective has already been made. The latest Camden Local Plan draft (2024) states that development of Murphy’s Yard and Regis Road Estate must “take opportunities to enhance biodiversity, with potential for the provision of vegetation buffers along the railway lines to create and improve connections for wildlife”.
The figure opposite shows some of the SINC improvements we are exploring, along with potential new vegetation strips to link SINCs and buffer them from new housing. Inside developments, developers can achieve their Biodiversity Net Gain requirements by creating green infrastructure that specifically reinforces the Corridor.
This could include ground level swales and ponds as part of a sustainable drainage system, green walls, hedgerows, clumps of trees or small orchards and wildflower meadows.
Linking up with other local nature initiatives
We are making links with other nature-focused community groups and organizations who are creating and improving nature-rich spaces along roadsides, in public green spaces, at schools and in private gardens.
These complementary interventions will help to spread biodiversity from the Corridor. We are also engaging with groups creating nature-rich areas south of the Corridor, including the Camden Highline.
How you can be involved in the Camden Nature Corridor and its development
If you would like to endorse the campaign and receive updates, please complete the form on this page. You can use this as well to ask questions and make suggestions. We are keen to meet with other local organization and group supporting nature in the area of the Corridor, to share ideas and discuss how we can work together to accelerate local nature recovery.
We will keep you informed of developments with a regular newsletter, and other opportunities to explore the proposed Corridor. Finally, some of our participating SINCs are presently open to the public – Hampstead Heath, Kentish Town City Farm and Talacre Town Green. Why not pay them a visit and see for yourself how they are being managed for nature appreciation and education.