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 community-led campaign 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 more 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 in the figure to the right, 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.
Between and bordering these five SINCs lie three Central Camden priority site allocations for housing and business development: Murphy’s Yard, Regis Road and West Kentish Town Estate.
Over 2000 new homes are planned for these sites in the coming decade. Because of their proximity to the SINCs, these developments could easily degrade them, through direct damage, overshading, noise and light pollution, and by creating barriers to wildlife movement.
Or they could do the opposite, protecting and connecting the SINCs, if they were developed with modest strips of natural habitat and nature-friendly green spaces in areas of housing. Recent studies have shown that distinctive wildlife on Hampstead Heath, including hedgehogs, woodpeckers, thrushes, butterflies and frogs, can colonize these SINCs to the South, if these habitats can be improved.
Wildlife in these joined-up SINC habitats would then begin to visit nearby public green spaces and gardens, broadening the corridor into surrounding neighbourhoods, and enhancing healthy nature experiences on our doorsteps. With their improved and extended natural habitats, our SINCs would be even better places to deliver local nature education services to schools and families.
An urgent need
The 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 significantly 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 a rare chance to create new space for nature. Camden has already identified SINCS as “stepping stones” for developing the Nature Recovery Networks prioritized in its Biodiversity Action Plan.
Linked by green infrastructure in new development, this line of SINCs can create such a 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 like these in their Neighbourhood Development Plans and Visions.
Progress and next steps
A proposal for the Corridor was submitted to the Camden Local Plan Consultation in 2024. Its features are summarized in the figure to the right. It proposed improvement of habitats in all five SINCs (in yellow) to support biodiversity and to be more resilient to the effects of development around them. New natural habitat (in green) would be put in the development sites.
The Camden Nature Corridor has been included as priority infrastructure in Camden’s 2025 draft Local Plan, requiring development on Murphy’s Yard, Regis Road and West Kentish Town Estate to support its delivery.
Our campaign now has three objectives. Each will produce a nature-positive outcome for our local community, and 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 biodiversity and to be more resilient to future development and the effects of climate change. This means management and modification of woodland, scrub and meadow, creation of new habitats like ponds and wetland, and control invasive alien plants.
Some of these interventions are shown in the figure to the right, whereSINCs are marked in yellow. 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 habitats and 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. We plan to work with developers of these sites to design appropriate plantings and habitats, including narrow, buffering hedgerows around SINC borders and broader, linking vegetation strips along railsides and roads.
We will also produce a design code for green infrastructure inside development sites which is appropriate to the ecology of the adjacent SINCs, with specific reference to Hampstead Heath as the principal source of biodiversity for the Corridor. This code can be used, for instance, in the design of tree-lined spaces, small hedgerows and areas of wildflower meadow, swales and ponds.
Linking up with other local nature initiatives along and beyond the Corridor
With support from Camden Council, we have engaged local Tenant and Residents’ Associations, community groups and wildlife, landscape and gardening experts to help us to design the Corridor and link it with other green initiatives in surrounding neighbourhoods. These include local efforts to increase nature-rich areas along roadsides, in public green spaces, at schools and in private gardens. This will help to broaden the Corridor and to support its biodiversity.
Finally, we are engaging with local green initiatives to the south of Talacre Town Green, to explore how we can extend a Camden Nature Corridor to their projects and beyond into central London.
The Camden Nature Corridor campaign is a community initiative coordinated by several local organizations and SINC managers, including the Heath & Hampstead Society, City of London Corporation, Mortimer Terrace Nature Reserve, Kentish Town City Farm, and Friends of Talacre Town Green. Network Rail is also working with us to incorporate nature improvements into their SINC area along the Corridor. We are grateful for the advice and involvement from Camden Council in our work, and the support and participation of local Camden residents and community groups.
(Images produced by Sam Brooke/ AABArchitects)