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Wild Bloomsbury
We aim to create a climate resilient, vibrant and liveable Bloomsbury by reintroducing nature
Wild Bloomsbury will identify space for and implement natural interventions such as green walls, brown roofs and pocket gardens across the Bloomsbury area - creating valuable amenity space and benefitting from the services nature brings us from cooling to air purification. The project will also provide 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. Wild Bloomsbury Vision
Partners - Join us!
UCL has partnered with the University of London, Bedford Estates, Camden Council, Birkbeck, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and SOAS to create a strategy for a healthier and liveable Wild Bloomsbury. The vision above is a summary of the strategy.
We know that there are many organisations and citizens already implementing nature-based solutions, who are passionate about making a climate resilient community. We hope that Wild Bloomsbury can act as an umbrella, encouraging groups to work together under one vision, apply for funding jointly and learning from each other to make a difference on a larger scale. We don’t currently have a fixed idea of what being a member of Wild Bloomsbury means, we want to co-create this with you. If you are interested, please get in contact with Hannah Biggs, Sustainability Manager at UCL: Hannah.biggs@ucl.ac.uk
UCL Students and Staff
Help create a Wild Bloomsbury with our planting and active travel resources
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.
Explore our nature based solutions at UCL
We hope to significantly incrase this by 2024.
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.
Event: Working with Nature for Sustainable Development
How can we work with nature to enhance both environmental sustainability and human development? A panel discussion with Sir Robert Watson, Professor Nathalie Seddon and Dr Susan Chomba explores this question.
Bats in the Olympic park
The activity of urban bats in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London is being monitored in real-time using new, automated smart detectors that have been developed and installed by UCL and Intel scientists in collaboration with Arup, the Bat Conservation Trust and the London Wildlife Trust.
Analysis: why foods grown in warm climates could be doing the most damage to wildlife
Food produced in tropical and Mediterranean regions comes at a higher cost to biodiversity than that grown elsewhere, say Dr Tim Newbold, Adrienne Etard, Gonzalo Albaladejo Robles and Jessica J Williams (all UCL Biosciences).
Climate change a key driver of bumblebee decline
Increasingly hot temperatures appear to be driving declines in bumblebee populations across Europe and North America, according to a UCL and University of Ottawa study.