In an urban area such as Hackney, biodiversity plays a vital role in cleaning our air, reducing the effect of hot temperatures in summer and helping to control water run-off, reducing flooding. These benefits to people are called ecosystem services.

It has been shown that contact with the natural environment can improve people’s wellbeing and reduce stress.

Meadows are becoming more common in Hackney’s parks.

Meadows can take different forms from the highly colourful pictorial meadow, in London Fields to the more subtle grass meadow in South Millfields.

All types of meadow provide a better habitat for insects compared to amenity grassland and can provide a food source for bees and butterflies.

Grass meadows are created by simply reducing how often the grass is cut, allowing it to grow tall, flower and seed.

Wildflower meadows consist of British wildflower species such as the corncockle, poppy or oxeye daisy and a mix of grasses.

Pictorial meadows will commonly include British wildflowers. It will also include non-native species, which can give an impressive display or extend the flowering period of the meadow. Pictorial meadows commonly flower from May to October.

Meadows are sown in either the spring or autumn. They can include annual and perennial species. This combination ensures a great splash of colour and that the meadow blooms year after year.

They’re cut in the autumn and the cuttings removed and composted. This helps to lower the soil’s fertility. This provides better growing conditions for the meadow. In general they prefer less fertile, well-drained soil.

In recent years meadows have been sown at:

• Hackney Downs
• Millfields
• Stoke Newington Common
• London Field

Hackney biodiversity partnership is a group of local people who meet to discuss improvements to biodiversity in Hackney.

If you’d like to hear about the latest meeting dates, sign up to our mailing list.

The best way to help bees is to make sure there are places for them to feed and shelter. Gardens and parks in urban areas can provide good sources of nectar and pollen. 

You can find out more about how to help bees in the British Beekeepers Association’s list of pollen and nectar-rich plants.

We’re also leaving an increasing number of areas of longer grass to provide a source of food for insects such as bees.

If you would like to learn more about bees, see the presentation that Russell Miller produced for a biodiversity talk in Hackney, see presentation (PDF 13mb)

If you’d like to find out more about bees and beekeeping, contact the following organisations:

• East London Beekeepers
• Lea Bees
• Sustainable Hackney – bees

Hackney Biodiversity Partnership provides advice on how to create and manage areas for wildlife. 

For information on meadow creation, hedgerows, planting schemes, bird boxes and much more see biodiversity management in Hackney (google doc).

For information on attaching bird and bat boxes to trees and choosing suitable locations, see bird and bat box siting (PDF 177kb).

Information about the planning system in Hackney is available in planning policies. 

For information about biodiversity measures that can be incorporated into new developments or regeneration projects, and general principles on the features we expect to see in development applications, see the Hackney advice note: biodiversity and the built environment (PDF 4mb).

For detailed guidance on our requirements for biodiversity surveys and assessments needed for validating planning applications, see Hackney advice note – biodiversity validation and biodiversity assessments (PDF 82kb)

Information about planning validation checklists is available at documents, forms and guides.

To ensure our projects follow best practice guidelines we’ve produced a checklist, including information about the sorts of projects that need species or habitat surveys, and providing sources for further advice.

See Hackney projects biodiversity checklist (PDF 98kb).

More than half of Hackney’s households rent from social landlords or registered providers, and a large number of these residents live in estates. Examples of estates where residents have worked with local organisations to create and manage their local green space:

• The London Wildlife Trust project is working with residents of Hackney estates to engage people in the improvement of their local green spaces and develop their conservation skills
• The Clapton Park tenant management organisation has chosen to use the Grass Roof Company as their maintenance contractor. The estate is often referred to as the ‘poppy estate’ because of the number of wild flowers

Gardens provide an important network of green space across Hackney, however certain areas in the borough, such as Shoreditch and Dalston, have considerably fewer private gardens than elsewhere.

How to manage gardens for wildlife:

• Biodiversity Management in Hackney (google doc)
• RSPB
• Froglife

Sites of importance for nature conservation (SINCs) are areas designated for their importance for wildlife. The designation is also referred to as ‘non-statutory wildlife site’ or ‘local site’.

In London, there are 3 grades of SINC:

• sites of metropolitan importance – important at a London-wide scale, sites which contain the best examples of London’s habitats, have particularly rare species or have particular significance in heavily built-up areas
• sites of borough importance – important on a borough perspective, divided into two grades on the basis of their quality
• sites of local importance – of particular value to people nearby, such as residents or schools

There are 24 SINCs in Hackney including a number of public parks, wetlands and waterways and woodlands.

See list of Hackney sites of importance for nature conservation (PDF 52kb)

Hackney’s Biodiversity Action Plan 2012-17 (PDF 5mb) (BAP) was replaced by the Local Nature Recovery Plan (PDF 6.1mb) in 2022.

The Local Nature Recovery Plan has Hackney’s Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINCs) as the foundation of a local nature recovery network.

Hackney is divided into five ‘nature recovery areas’ which identify opportunities for projects and interventions that can help make ecological connections that protect, augment and connect the SINC network. This could be done through methods such as:

• making enhancements to parks
• wildlife-friendly planting in amenity green-spaces
• urban greening in new developments.

We need to understand what species and habitats we have in order to make informed decisions about how to manage our environment. Knowing what wildlife shares our borough gives us the knowledge to:

• manage parks and open spaces for specific habitats and species
• consider biodiversity in planning policy and responses
• target projects towards the species and habitats that most need our help

Local wildlife records also contribute to our understanding of how biodiversity is changing over time at both the regional and national scale.

We encourage you to submit any records that you collect of habitats or species.

This could be a:

• list of birds that you see in your local park
• butterfly that visits your window box
• thorough site survey

Currently, we are particularly keen for people to record amphibians and mammals as these groups are currently under-recorded across London.

If you have spotted something but aren’t sure what it is, there are plenty of places to go for help.

You can:

• put a photo on Sustainable Hackney and see if anyone can tell you what it is
• visit iSpot for advice from a national network of wildlife spotters

• Why record wildlife? (PDF 654kb)
• the basics of recording (PDF 506kb)
• wildlife records and data (PDF 8mb)
• Greenspace Information for Greater London (PDF 2mb)
• habitat and plant surveys (PDF 9mb)
• biodiversity recording in Hackney (PDF 11mb)