Woodlands

Find out more about Burgess Park woodlands.

Healthy Woodlands – Winter/spring 2024 woodlands programme

Our healthy woodlands programmes launched January 27 2024 with a woodlands maintenance session in Albany Rd woodlands (details below). Woodlands event spring 2024 more details and booking .

Albany Road woodlands – butterfly habit

During 2024 a new woodland glade will be added into the Albany Road woodlands. In January volunteers cleared brambles and buddleia to make space for meadow habitat. During the spring the roots will be cleared and the area seeded with meadow plants. This work is part of Big City Butterflies, a Butterfly Conservation project, to increase butterfly habitats across London parks.

Ariel image of Albany Rd woodlands showing the new glade.
Blue and yellow indicates the new woodland glade at Albany Road woodlands

In addition a new accessible pathway will be installed through Albany Road woodlands, funded by the council Cleaner Greener Safer fund

Volunteers Jenny ((left) and Monica (right) clear bramble

 

FOBP Highly Commended at the London Tree and Woodland Awards in the Community Woodland Award category. November 2023

Thanks to our volunteers

Atkins volunteers remove tree cages and ties
Atkins volunteers install woodland signs

Woodland signs installed 2023

Wooden roundel signs installed across Burgess Park woodlands spring 2023

Friends of Burgess Park has been awarded seed-corn funding from Natural England for a woodlands focused project. Our project will include a woodland festival, hands-on work in the woodlands and a new trail around the woodlands with online information. We held a mini woodland festival in autumn 2022, undertook woodlands activities between December to February and woodland walks in spring 2023 plus developed a dedicated website link as above.

Woodland management 2023

Coppicing hazel
Coppicing hazel
Stag beetle loggery
Removing black landscape fabric
Woodlands maintenance session
St George’s Way copses
 

Mini Woodland Festival 2022

Albany woodlands popup walk
Woodlands walk signs
Tree dressing
Children art sessions
Woodland community weaving frame

London Tree and Woodland Awards 2022

Highly Commended Our woodlands campaign to protect Southampton Way woodlands against development pressure was highly commended with a London Urban Forest Award at the London Tree and Woodland Awards 2022. Thanks to all local groups and park users who have supported us.

The Awards ( #TreeOscars) are organised by the Forestry Commission and supported by the Mayor of London. They aim to raise the profile of London’s trees and woodlands and their need for active management. The awards showcase the work taking place all over the city to protect and increase London’s urban forest (urban forestry guidance). 

FOBP members receiving the award
Friends of Burgess Park receive a London Forest Urban Award at Kew Gardens
Image of fallen wood and spring growth.

Burgess Park has beautiful woodlands which are vital for local wildlife. They are a precious resource in the heart of inner London Southwark.  We want to protect and enhance the woodlands.

Friends of Burgess Park is working on more woodland projects in 2022 to show the value of these special places for people and wildlife. 

Read the 2021 report by London Wildlife Trust about Southampton Way woodlands
 Our woodland fundraising campaign (May 2021) raised £2220. Thank you to everyone who generously supported this, helped promote it and the volunteer team who made it happen.

The funding will enable an up-to-date independent ecology report from the London Wildlife Trust (LWT) to review the current evidence and reflect on the value of the woodlands as an important local and London habitat. Our main focus will initially be on the main mass of Southampton Way woodlands and St George’s Way woodlands. Both areas will be affected by the current planning applications for new developments next to the park. 

The report will become a key tool, both with informing planning of surrounding developments, and with helping us understand the woodlands potential and other actions we can put in place to ensure that the area/our local ecology thrives.

Find out more about the woodlands ecology report

London Wildlife Trust have told us the Burgess Park woodlands have a special value:

  • The woodlands have ecological value to the broader parkland, reflecting the recognition of Burgess Park’s potential biodiversity value for local people.
  • The significance of the local bat population and the role the park plays in supporting that bat population foraging and the impact of building lighting.
  • The building shading on the ecological area immediately to the north of the proposed development site are not insignificant and may have considerable long-term effects on woodlands, woodland species and pollinators.
  • The cumulative effects from proposed developments along Parkhouse Street.
  • Negative long-term habitat and species impacts on protected and/or priority species.
  • Burgess Park is a Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation in Southwark, it is of authority-wide value.
image of flower
Read more about the 10 and 11 storey developments planned for Parkhouse Street which will impact the woodlands.
Follow our Instagram account @burgess_park_nature. 
Read Jenny's blog: Love your woodlands – so much more than lots of trees 
She discusses the value of light for woodlands as well as the wildlife to be found there.