Big Give – Big Thanks! £22,500 Raised for New Wildlife Fund
A big thank you from the WPCC team to everyone who kindly donated to our recent Big Give Earth Raise online appeal, helping us to exceed our target and raise an impressive £22,500 in just one week!
These monies are going to our new Wildlife Fund, which allows us to deliver nature-based solutions and conservation work to protect and restore the Commons’ habitats including rare heathland and some of London’s last remaining peat bogs, which support a rich variety of insects, birds and amphibians and make the Commons so special.
Without regular, skilled management, many of the Commons’ most important features would gradually decline, facing growing pressures from climate change, invasive species and the impacts of an urban environment and growing population.
Therefore our dedicated Wildlife Fund aims to:
- Strengthen climate resilience, including hydrology improvements
- Improve the ecological condition of the rare peatland habitats
- Restore heathland and acid grassland supporting rare species
- Enhance the woodlands and ponds to increase diversity
- Conserve smaller but critical habitats (hedgerows, glades, road side verges).
Together, these actions will strengthen the Commons’ resilience to hotter summers and wetter winters.
As those of you who took part in our dedicated walk with Conservation Officer Peter Haldane learned, the new Wildlife Fund will help our Conservation and Maintenance teams carry out a variety of projects including:
- Planting wildflower meadows, which currently account for only 1% of land in the UK, and reintroducing native flora such as wild orchid.
- Restoring the Commons Heathland which makes up 50 hectares of 80 hectares remaining in Greater London. In 1970, the Windmill could be viewed from the War Memorial, but in the intervening years, woodland has encroached upon this habitat.
- Our team and volunteers are constantly clearing scrub and thinning out the woodland, using a stump grinder which was funded by a previous Big Give campaign! This work allows the Heathland to regenerate and plants such as heather to thrive.
- Clearing invasive species such as Japanese Knotwood and Himalayan Balsam, the latter affecting wetland areas, including the Beverley Brook. Growing rapidly, Himalayan balsam can reach a height of between two and three metres in one season, spreading quickly and smothering other vegetation beneath it. Our officers and volunteer teams have to manually remove clumps of Himalayan Balsam form the edge of the brook and watercourse.
- Installing bird boxes. Over the past two years, we have installed more than 120 bird boxes, targeting various Tit species, Robin, Wren, Swallow, Swift, Tawny Owl and Kestrel. Of the 85 installed in 2025, 80 are occupied, providing safe spaces where chicks can be born and raised with fewer risks from predators or bad weather.
