Perth Road Nature Garden is part of the Lea Bridge Area Framework in Waltham Forest. The project aims to create a more climate-resilient environment, provide educational resources, and establish a new green space for the entire community to enjoy. The garden seeks to maximize social value, support local biodiversity, and foster neighbourhood stewardship and care.

On Planting Day, residents gathered to celebrate the launch of a vibrant new green space, young people helped out by planting and crafting bird feeders to enrich the garden.

The nature garden brings new life to the previously neglected green space on Perth Road. Located adjacent to Sybourn Early Years Excellence Centre, it sits between the rich and diverse nature corridors and waterways at Lee Valley and Dagenham Brook.

The garden is co-created with young people from the Eco-council at the school and was carried out through a series of creative workshops. Workshop activities were themed around supporting local ecosystems, imagining new encounters with nature and wildlife, and learning about the diversity of species. Through these sessions the planting layout evolved to produce a new diverse ecology: an open habitat to encourage insects, a woodland verge to welcome birds and other creatures and a protected fruit and herb garden that forms an outside classroom. Habitats are complemented by a series of playful constructed wildlife homes including a series of gabion blocks and bird perch posts.

The choice of garden components is guided by the principles of re-use and repair. Existing brickwork boundary walls are retained and re-introduced to gabions, the old garden gate is repaired, adapted, and re-hung, crushed- brick aggregate forms the main paths and soil is re-used and re-graded across the site. For other components we used natural materials: timber posts and rails for the enclosure to the school garden and hardwood for the garden walkways.

The engagement of schools in the design, development, and delivery of public realm and greening schemes has significantly informed a series of projects in Waltham Forest. By prioritising the needs of multiple species, we have developed processes that expand children’s understanding of their interconnectedness with the surrounding environment.

Through playful and interactive methods, we highlight the links between the biodiversity crisis and the spaces right outside their schools. In doing so, we aim to instil a sense of agency, connectedness, and responsibility towards the environment we share with the many living species that sustain us.

The tangible connection between the design process that the children have participated in and their involvement in the on-site delivery makes this series of projects special.

The Perth Road wildlife garden is part of a nature corridor that links several sites within the urban context of Waltham Forest. Through a series of workshops with pupils from Sybourn School, we explored the needs of various species and developed creative ways to accommodate them. These engagement sessions informed the construction and on-site implementation.

Going forward, the garden will be cared for collaboratively by the school and residents, ensuring its long-term contribution to the local biodiversity.

What if: projects worked together with project partners Meristem in delivering this scheme and in collaboration with in-house teams at LB Waltham Forest.

This project is part-funded by the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.