Digging deep at Kensington Town Hall

Today the Council’s leadership team joined gardeners planting 10,000 bulbs outside Kensington Town Hall as part of a plan to improve biodiversity in the borough and encourage more bees and other pollinators.
 
By the end of the year the Council will have planted 140,000 new bulbs of 19 naturalised plant varieties across the borough, enhancing and creating new pockets of habitat to support pollinators as part of the borough’s Bee Superhighway. 
 
The project’s pollinator ‘stepping stones’ connect open spaces and green infrastructure across the borough as part of a nature recovery network that gives nature room to thrive. The bulbs will provide a vital source of food for pollinators early in the year and help enhance biodiversity in Kensington and Chelsea. 
 
Following the mass planting, Cllr Emma Will, Lead Member for Leisure, said: “Britain has lost over 90 per cent of its wildflower meadows in the last century, creating a massive challenge to the survival of pollinators.  Without them many of our crops wouldn’t grow and our gardens and countryside would look dramatically different.  We have been developing the Bee Superhighway for three years and the planting of 140,000 bulbs across the borough will give pollinators a vital helping hand in being able to get around the borough and find food.”
 
London has the potential to make a huge contribution to helping pollinators, with nearly a quarter of Greater London covered in gardens. Traditionally they have contained a good mix of flowering plants for bees and other insects to feed on. However, much of this space has been lost to development or through paving or decking in gardens. 
 
The work being done with the Bee Superhighway, together with other biodiversity projects in the borough will increase resilience to climate change, help improve air quality, increase access to nature, and create a diverse green infrastructure.
 
The biodiversity work of the Council will increase access and contact with nature for residents, helping to support their physical and mental health and wellbeing.  
 
Kensington and Chelsea Council has pledged to be carbon neutral by 2040 and part of that aim also includes a commitment to increasing biodiversity.  A key measure of this is the Bee Superhighway and one way this is being supported is with the planting of over 140,000 bulbs around the borough before Christmas.