Thank you to our weekend volunteers!
Thanks to our local volunteers we had a busy weekend of activities in the park, river, and just outside the park on Old Bromley Road; all part of the incredible transformation taking place in the east side of the park!
Scroll down to see what our volunteers got up to in the gallery below and read on to find out how you can get involved in these family friendly opportunities close to the Downham, Bellingham and Ravensbourne entrances to Beckenham Place Park.
Rain gardens on Old Bromley Road
Last weekend saw the completion of the first three of a series nine planned rain gardens on Old Bromley Road that will link Downham Woodland Walk with Beckenham Place Park. The park’s head gardener Tilly and lead ranger James supported by 17 local volunteers planted five new street trees and hundreds of new herbaceous plants, all specially selected to be able to survive occasional flooding or drought conditions. We’d like to give a big thank you to everyone who helped out or stopped by to chat.
Rain gardens help to capture water that would otherwise end up in the sewer system, this helps reduces the potential severity of flood events that are becoming more likely because of climate change.
If you’d like to help out by taking care of the rain gardens or get involved with future planting please contact the team at bppvolunteers@lewisham.gov.uk
Get to know your Ravensbourne River in Beckenham Place Park
Our brilliant volunteers spent five hours on Sunday wading upstream in the river collecting rubbish from the water and riverbanks. Join a river conservation session with environmental charity, Thames21 every month. The family friendly tasks range from a river clean up, riverbank conservation tasks, to water quality sampling which helps us understand how healthy the river is, by looking at what’s alive in it and with this understanding know how we can help improve the quality of the water.
To join the mailing list, sign up for a volunteering session or become a member of the Downham River Action Group and receive free nationally accredited training to lead your own river events, please email BPP Engagement Officer Catriona Ross at BPPRiver@thames21.org.uk . Find out more about the project here
Tree planting
A great effort was made on Saturday by the Young Mayor’s Advisors in planting trees with our ranger James.
They worked for two hours on the river bank planting a mixture of river side trees such as black poplar and alder along with some native woodland mix trees like hawthorn and oak.
These tree whips are part of our commitment to plant over 2000 trees as part of the river side regeneration of the park.
The next family friendly tree planting session will take place on Saturday 23rd April between 10am and 12pm and 1pm and 3pm. You’re invited to drop in for however long you’d like. Please contact ranger James for further details or any questions to bppvolunteers@lewisham.gov.uk