Camley Street Natural Park revisited

Yesterday I revisited Camley Street Natural Park, an urban nature reserve close to King's Cross and St Pancras stations run by the London Wildlife Trust

Once a coal depot for King's Cross, the one hectare site was reclaimed by nature in the 1960s. After a campaign by the Trust to save it from redevelopment it opened as a natural park in 1985.

My first visit was in 2008, when the King's Cross redevelopment was imminent. As I wrote in the New Statesman* at the time:

This poses a dilemma to those involved with the park. They want its work to be more widely known - and Camley Street could emerge as a flagship for the London Wildlife Trust, which looks after more than 40 sites across the city - but they are wary of the change in character that an influx of office workers eating their sandwiches may bring.

The obvious changes I saw yesterday were that a sliver of land has been lost to a new footbridge across the Regent's Canal, which borders the site, and the spiffy new visitor and learning centre, which includes a café.

And the centre is needed. One of the staff there told me they have had people spotting their unexpected green oasis from an arriving Eurostar and coming over to see what it can be.

The park itself, which somehow manages to fit in woodland, grassland and wetland habitats, was as refreshing as ever, and the Trust's website describes recent progress with its work of conservation:

Alongside the Centre, much-needed, access improvements, new interpretation and habitat enhancement works have taken place, including desilting the ponds, enhancing the wildflower meadow and improving the wetland and reedbed areas. With our volunteers we are in the process of creating a new butterfly and invertebrate bank at the north end of the site, visitors will be able to watch it develop and grow over time.

100m of multi-functional floating reedbeds have been placed in the water’s edge along this area of the Regent’s Canal. They incorporate habitats for birds to nest in, invertebrates to live in, fish to spawn and shelter from predators in. The reedbeds also provide a range of ecosystem functions, including the absorption of excess nutrients from the water, mitigating canal pollution.

I can strongly recommend a visit.

* Either all my New Statesman pieces have been taken off the magazine's website or you now have to be a subscriber to search it. Whatever the reason, my piece on Camley Street was the only one I had printed in the magazine rather than just posted online.