THE CRANE VALLEY IN LB

CURRENT STATUS AND FUTURE PLANS

FORCE REPORT TO THE , AND AREA FORUM: 28TH JANUARY 2021

1. The River Crane valley runs from north to south for around 5km through the western part of LB Hounslow. It links together a network of linear open spaces comprising several hundred hectares in total. In the north the river provides the boundary with LB Hillingdon and the corridor includes Avenue Park, Crane Bank and Huckerby Meadows nature reserves. In the central area it provides the eastern boundary of Feltham and links together Donkey Woods, Brazil Mill Woods and . To the south the river provides the boundary with LB Richmond and links sites such as Crane Park, Pevensey Nature Reserve and Hanworth Park.

2. The Crane corridor also links to the Upper Duke’s River corridor in Donkey Woods, which runs through Feltham and Bedfont to join with the open green spaces of the Colne River corridor to the west and the leading to Bushy Park in the south.

3. This is an incredible series of environmental and community assets for this part of the borough. These in turn are part of a much larger network of river corridors across the whole Crane catchment, linking over 1500 hectares of green open spaces and stretching from Harrow in the north to the in .

4. Unfortunately, over many years, these open spaces have become run down and little used and appreciated by local communities or the many businesses and industries that back onto them. This is something that FORCE, working together with the council and other partners, is very keen to reverse.

5. Friends of the River Crane Environment (FORCE) were formed in 2003. We are a Charity with over 650 members and a remit to protect and enhance the community and environmental value of the Crane valley. We are also part of the Crane Valley Partnership (CVP), bringing together all five River Crane councils (LB Harrow; LB Hillingdon; LB Ealing; LB Hounslow and LB Richmond) alongside the Environment Agency, Heathrow, Thames Water and other businesses, and third sector organisations, into a partnership able to manage multi-agency projects.

6. FORCE’s initial work areas were in and around Crane Park. Our first larger project (in 2009) raised around half a million pounds to improve this park, working together with LB Hounslow, LB Richmond and other partners. When we started this project the parts of Crane Park adjacent to the Butts Farm Estate were virtually a no go area, whereas the whole park is now a highly valued asset with hundreds of people (men, women and children of all ages) using it every day.

7. In 2014 we helped to set up a second major project along the Lower Duke’s River, a four kilometre corridor linking the River Crane with the Thames through , Whitton and Isleworth. This was also a joint LB Richmond and LB Hounslow project, this time managed by Crane Valley Partnership (CVP), and the project team raised well over half a million pounds to greatly enhance the walking route and environmental value of this corridor.

8. Several years ago we started to turn more of our attention to the remarkable network of open spaces upstream of Crane Park. Five years ago Pevensey Nature Reserve (on the other side of Hanworth Road from Crane Park) was largely overgrown and impenetrable. Now, following years of weekly volunteer efforts by the Pevensey Green Gym Rangers, and supported by Greenspace 360, it is a very popular local open space of high environmental value.

9. In May 2018 we carried out our first volunteer day in Donkey Woods and Brazil Mill Woods. We learnt several things that day:

 The spaces were very neglected - we collected three tonnes of litter from the sites over the day without making a major impact on their overall condition  There was lots of local interest in the sites – around 40 local volunteers joined us – probably our largest volunteer day turn out to that point  Very few people were making use of the sites – we saw about ten visitors in total over the course of the volunteer day, all of them male  Beneath the litter the sites were exceptionally beautiful, with great environmental value, as well as containing remarkable heritage assets

10. Our interest in these spaces has only grown over the last two or three years. In January 2020 we launched an initial project, funded through the Hounslow Communities Fund, to engage local communities and businesses with these spaces and carry out practical volunteer led improvements. This has been a partnership project with:

 Habitats and Heritage (formerly South West London Environment Network) – a co-ordinating organisation for environmental volunteering activities in LB Hounslow and elsewhere in West London  Let’s Go Outside and Learn (LGOAL) – a local social enterprise focussed on engaging communities with outdoor spaces through education, specialising in harder to reach groups  The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) – leaders of practical environmental volunteering activities locally and nationally

The project has worked closely with Lampton Greenspace 360.

11. This project has been significantly impacted by the Covid 19 pandemic. Nevertheless, we have managed to deliver 12 practical volunteering sessions with TCV and Lampton as well as a dozen or more family learning events in the open spaces. These events, alongside the great work being carried out by Lampton, have started to change the appearance and value of these open spaces. At the same time FORCE and H&H have been engaging with local businesses and communities and running a publicity campaign to advertise the value of these spaces.

12. The project has engaged with the following locally based businesses: Volker Fitzpatrick, Do & Co, Heathrow, Kidscape (at the old Hounslow Heath GC site) and Segro. There was considerable interest from these corporates – which is unusual for a small-scale community and environmental project of this kind. During the pandemic we reduced our contact with them as many have been particularly badly affected. However, we will re-engage with them this year and remain confident that their interest will translate into one or more key commitments to further project delivery.

13. We have explored the educational value of the sites with teachers from Sparrow Farm Infant School, Sparrow Farm Junior School, Crane Park Junior School, Reach Academy and Woodbridge Park (a pupil referral unit with a base in Feltham). We were unable to run outdoor learning sessions for schools over the last year but instead have been developing curriculum based resources for use by schools when the situation allows.

14. The public have responded to our project work, and the increased awareness and need for local open spaces during the pandemic, by engaging with these open spaces in unprecedented numbers.

15. FORCE carried out six informal surveys of public usage numbers for these sites last summer, following similar surveys in 2019. The surveys found that public use had increased by 500 to 1000 per cent during the summer lockdown period, growing from 30 to 50 visitors per day to several hundred people per day. This is a remarkable and very encouraging increase in public use. In addition, the numbers and proportion of women and children have increased substantially, indicating a change in public perception of the safety of the project area. Detailed survey information is available on request.

16. FORCE has maps of all the areas we work in and these can be downloaded from our website. The two most popular maps over the lockdown period have been as follows:

 Donkey Woods, Brazil Mill Woods and Hounslow Heath: 691 downloads  Feltham Loop – River Crane; Upper Duke’s and Longford Rivers: 933 downloads

This again indicates the high level of public interest in this area.

17. We have posted regular items on these spaces in response to the high level of public interest. The social media data for the last nine months for these postings are as follows:

 Facebook: 58 posts 88494 views 2352 likes  Twitter: 19 posts 34947 views 2581 responses

18. The average number of Facebook views for a post was around 1500 whilst the highest was around 7000. The average number of twitter views was around 1800 whilst the highest was around 9000. These views are significantly higher than the average views for other FORCE posts over this period. Analysis of our followers indicates that the large majority of these views are from the local community.

19. Assuming that Facebook and twitter viewers are largely different then this suggests a regular community audience for postings on these project areas of around 3000 people and a peak audience of around 15000. The discovery of this latent online audience for these areas is another major positive finding from the project.

20. In summer 2020, and in response to the great public interest and potential for the sites, we started to prepare a proposal for LB Hounslow CIL funding to enhance these spaces. We developed this proposal in discussion with our project partners, LB Hounslow officers in parks and transport, and Lampton Greenspace 360.

21. We were delighted to learn, in December last year, that various CIL and S106 project funding streams have been allocated to the LB Hounslow areas of the Crane valley, totalling around £500,000. These funds will enable the transformation of these key open spaces, providing enhanced access for walkers and cyclists, signage and biodiversity improvements.

22. We are confident that further funding will be available, including via our partners in the Crane Valley Partnership, to complement these infrastructure improvements with further community engagement, ensuring that all local communities are engaged in the opportunities to enhance these open spaces.

23. There are great opportunities to engage with these spaces to provide benefits in health, environment and biodiversity, heritage, climate change and carbon management, outdoor education and training programmes. Crane Valley Partnership is well positioned to help support these programmes, including the identification of funding streams.

24. We are now working with LB Hounslow officers and other interested parties to set up a steering group to oversee the programmes of work envisaged over the next three to five years.

25. We are also talking to community groups in Cranford and to see how the opportunities can be extended further up the Crane Valley and into LB Hillingdon, linking to the major HLF project currently underway in .

26. We hope you are interested in engaging with these programmes of work, helping to design and implement them, and publicising these opportunities within the council and through the local public and business communities for example.

27. We look forward to discussing this programme with you further during the Area Forum. We also hope to organise a walk through the project area as soon as conditions allow.

28. For more information: https://habitatsandheritage.org.uk/get-involved/our- projects/transforming-the-environmental-and-community-value-of-the-crane-valley-feltham/ www.force.org.uk www.cranevalley.org.uk/ or contact [email protected]