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Wild Bloomsbury

We are working in partnership to create a Wild Bloomsbury, improving biodiversity, supporting wellbeing, building climate resilience and reducing air pollution for our local community. 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.

Image of a green Wilkins Terrace AT ucl
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

Wild Bloomsbury Plan

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.

 

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.

 

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.