Railway project could herald return of south London wood

A railway upgrade is to become the unlikely benefactor of a plan to restore the Great North Wood, which once swathed much of south London, as part of a controversial ‘biodiversity offsetting’ programme.

As far back as 1272, south London was blanketed by sessile oak and hornbeam woodland, called the Great North Wood by the Anglo Saxons, to differentiate it from an even bigger wood further south. Or, others claim less romantically, because it was ‘north of Croydon’. Daniel Defoe wrote about it. Samuel Pepys visited a fortune teller who lived in an encampment of Gypsies there. And Oliver Cromwell seized it from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

But over time the wood fell afoul of a number of trends, as it was stripped of trees to feed building projects and the Deptford Docks. In the 1850s, suburban homes began cropping up all over the area, further shrinking the woods. Today, only remnants of this woodland remain, in places like Dulwich and Sydenham. And, of course, in place-names such as Gipsy Hill, Forest Hill and Norwood that will be familiar to the London commuter.

But the London Wildlife Trust, a charity, has a plan to restore the wood, and yesterday that plan received a boost from Network Rail, the authority responsible for most of the UK’s rail infrastructure.

In a bid to offset the damage caused by the £4.6 billion Thameslink programme to improve the rail link between Bedford and Brighton by 2018, Network Rail is paying for this project to take place. The exact sum involved has not yet been decided, according to the London Wildlife Trust. This charity, along with a subsidiary of Balfour Beatty, will use the money to plant native trees and shrubs on sections of Streatham Common as part of the Great North Woods restoration project.

Once complete, the Thameslink project must leave in its wake a ‘net gain’ in biodiversity – in other words, Network Rail has committed to measuring the damage to habitats being done by the work, and more than making up for it. The project is trialling the use of a new tool produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to calculate biodiversity loss. Environment secretary Owen Paterson turned up on the Common to launch the project:

Imogen Walker, Lambeth’s cabinet member for the environment, says: ‘This new project, in partnership with London Wildlife Trust and Thameslink, will ensure that the common and the Rookery continue to be somewhere to enjoy and get close to wildlife in a safe and welcoming setting. After all, nature is as much part of our community as our people; this new exciting phase underlines our commitment to it.’

Lambeth Council does not have the budget set aside to carry out this sort of replanting on its own, sustain’ understands.

Amelia Woodley, environmental manager for Thameslink, explains in a statement that Network Rail has first of all tried to minimise the damage it is causing to biodiversity, training its staff on ‘biodiversity protection’ and planting on the site of the rail line as far as possible.

‘Achieving a net gain in a railway environment is challenging, and while our project at Streatham Common will generate many benefits for wildlife and the local communities, the use of biodiversity offsetting is a last resort to achieve our net gain target,’ she says.

Carlo Laurenzi, chief executive of London Wildlife Trust, says: ‘Large development projects such as the new Thameslink service inevitably lead to the loss of some natural habitat, but biodiversity offsetting ensures that nature doesn’t lose out. The creation of new woodland on Streatham Common will provide a rich wildlife environment and improve the site for local residents and visitors.’

But some green groups have strongly opposed the introduction of this sort of biodiversity offsetting. As Friends of the Earth’s nature campaigner Sandra Bell said earlier this year: ‘Nature is unique and complex – not something that can be bulldozed in one place and recreated in another at the whim of a developer.’