Wild Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury’s largest property owners are working together to bring nature back into the city. We aim to create a Wild Bloomsbury to improve biodiversity and wellbeing, build climate resilience and reduce air pollution for our residents, visitors, workers and students. With our goal of creating 10,000m2 of extra biodiverse space by 2024, we have the opportunity to demonstrate the benefits of nature based solutions, whilst forming strong community partnerships and making a better Bloomsbury for everyone.

We aim to create a vibrant and liveable Bloomsbury by reintroducing nature

Wild Bloomsbury aims to identify areas in Bloomsbury which are suitable for natural interventions such as green walls, brown roofs and pocket gardens to increase resilience to flooding and overheating, improve biodiversity, reduce pollution and provide valuable amenity space. The project provides a unique opportunity for researchers and students to test novel solutions in Bloomsbury.

We seek to increase health and wellbeing for the Bloomsbury community

We want to reduce congestion and pollution, and provide the infrastructure to enable healthy and active travel choices in Bloomsbury.

Partners

Currently the partners working on Wild Bloomsbury are UCL, the University of London, the Bedford Estates and Camden Council. We will be engaging with further stakeholders in the upcoming months.

Nature Based Solutions

Our aim is to create 10,000m2 of additional biodiverse space by 2024. Our community is key to reaching this goal; from growing food, to recording local bird species and making space for bees - see some of our case studies on how UCL students and staff are creating a Wild Bloomsbury.

UCL IOE Garden

Student and staff gardening project on top of the IOE encourage bees, bats and butterflies.

Bentham’s Farm: UCL’s student-led allotment

Bentham’s Farm are a community of food growers who have established allotment space at the back of the Ifor Evans/Max Rayne halls in Camden.

UCL Careers Wormery

UCL Careers have taken a novel approach to tackling the large amount of food waste that their offices and events generate, by recycling it via a wormery.

UCL Nature and Conservation Society

Established in 2016, UCL's conservation and nature society is a platform to share ideas and to organise events and campaigns to raise awareness of issues concerning wildlife conservation, within and beyond UCL.

School of Pharmacy Medicinal Garden

Volunteers from the Institute of Child Health and Institute of Education joined some staff and students from the School of Pharmacy to create a medicinal garden.

Mullard Space Science Laboratory: A haven for wildlife and gardeners

The MSSL Green Team have created 10 allotments with produce used in their canteen.

Active Travel

Active travel such as walking, cycling and scooting is a key means of reducing air pollution and increasing wellbeing. We collaborate with Camden and other stakeholders to make it easier, safer and more enjoyable to get to and around Bloomsbury by improving active travel routes and providing the necessary infrastructure - from showers to cycle confidence training.

Bike Buddies

Our new buddy scheme will pair experienced and new cyclists to create confident bike commuters.

UCL Logistics Zone

Our logistics hub will reduce congestion and pollution in Bloomsbury.

Walk and Cycle to UCL

Explore our resources to help you walk and cycle to UCL.

Torrington and Tavistock cycle lanes

Sustainable UCL has won a professional services award for our efforts to save the Torrington/Tavistock cycle lane trial.

Research

There is a wealth of research expertise on biodiversity at UCL from using citizen science to monitor wildlife through to assessing the health impacts of air pollution. It is an area of key interest for our community who are self-organising to create bioblitzes, wellbeing walks, bee meadows and more to put research into practice.