Do London Differently by London National Park City

Ranger Emily joins members of RSPB Croydon for a birdwatching walk in Happy Valley and Farthing Downs in South Croydon. We spot and hear a whole range of birds, including redwings, gold crests, kites, and long-tailed tits, and learn about why citizen science is so crucial for tracking patterns in bird numbers. You can be a citizen scientist too by taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch on 23-25 January - all it takes is an hour of your weekend. Sign up and get an info pack at rspb.org.uk.

Speakers:

Emily Langston, LNPC Ranger Croydon
John Birkett, Environment Committee, RSPB Croydon
Special thanks to volunteers and attendees for their birdwatching expertise!

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Is Paris really a benchmark for cycling?

At the end of last year I joined MPs, peers and cycling leaders on an All Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking day trip to Paris. I wasn’t there as a lobbyist, or as London National Park City, but as the videographer and photographer, capturing a two dozen strong group whizzing through Parisian streets on Lime bikes.

We boarded the 7am Eurostar from St Pancras with one question:
Is cycling in Paris really that good, and how did they pull it off?

Spoiler, yes. It’s good. And it happened because Paris chose political will over perfection, moved fast, learned in public, and rebalanced street space away from cars. But it’s not flawless, junctions and signals still feel like the stress-test.

In this film you’ll hear quick interviews and takeaways from MPs, peers and active travel leaders, what impressed them, what still felt sketchy, and what London could steal tomorrow.

Featuring interviews with:
- Mike Kane MP, MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East
- Fabian Hamilton MP, Chair, APPG Cycling and Walking
- Brian Mathew MP, MP for Melksham and Devizes
- Olly Glover MP, Vice Chair, APPG Cycling and Walking
- Ruth Cadbury MP, Chair, Transport Select Committee, MP for Brentford and Isleworth
- Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb, House of Lords
- Alice Pleasant, Senior Public Affairs Manager, Lime
- Xavier Bryce, CEO, Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (formerly Sustrans)
- Simon O’Brien, Liverpool City Region Cycling and Walking Commissioner
- Emily Cherry, Chief Executive, Bikeability Trust
- Trudy Harrison, Senior Advisor, Fusion, Chair of Trustees, Bikeability Trust
- Natalie Lindsay, Trustee, London Cycling Campaign
- Ed Clancy, Active Lives Commissioner, South Yorkshire, Managing Director, British Cycling Foundation
- Duncan Dollimore, Head of Campaigns, Cycling UK

Key London lessons, in one breath:
- Build connected networks, not isolated fragments
- Fix junctions and signals first, that’s where confidence collapses
- Reallocate road space boldly, then maintain and enforce it
- Do something usable now, improve it fast, do not wait for perfect

If you found this useful, please like, subscribe, and share it with someone who cares about how London moves.

Filmed in Paris on Lime bikes, with thanks to the hosts and everyone who shared their time and thoughts.

Links to organisations mentioned:
APPG Cycling and Walking - https://appgcw.org/
Lime - https://www.li.me/
Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (formerly Sustrans) - https://www.walkwheelcycletrust.org.uk/
Bikeability Trust - https://www.bikeability.org.uk/
London Cycling Campaign - https://lcc.org.uk/
Cycling UK - https://www.cyclinguk.org/
British Cycling Foundation - https://www.britishcycling.org.uk/foundation
Fusion - https://www.fusion-media.co.uk/
Liverpool City Region Combined Authority, active travel - https://www.liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk/
Savoir rouler a velo (France) - https://www.sports.gouv.fr/savoir-rouler-velo-609

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In this episode, London National Park City Ranger Nancy Turner shares the story of how Heston Action Group grew from simple litter picks into a thriving community garden and a wider movement to “green the grey”.

Nancy talks about:

• How the group started, and how volunteering on Sunday mornings helped shape the space
• The reality of community gardening, big jobs, limited hands, and learning as you go
• A sustainable drainage planting scheme, and the joy of seeing it thrive
• Nancy’s Ranger project, Pocket Gardens, turning depaved pavement patches into mini habitats
• How the London National Park City show garden at RHS Hampton Court helped unlock donated plants for local greening
• A small grant supporting edging, signage and explaining the “why” behind the pocket gardens
• The missed opportunities when pavements get fully tarmacked instead of leaving verges or tree pits
• The bigger challenge of front gardens being paved over, and the need for a proper local campaign
• Skills sharing, training, and workshops that helped build confidence (plus the eternal regret of not taking better notes!)
• New infrastructure on site, including a gazebo and compost toilet, opening the door to longer sessions and more community events
• Ambitions for film nights, workshops, more partner organisations using the space, and welcoming school visits back

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In this New Year episode we’re taking a quick look back at what’s been happening across London National Park City in 2025, from £80,000 redistributed through 112 community projects to a Ranger community now 160+ strong, Then we’ll set your 2026 walking intentions with three Go Jauntly challenges, build towards the London Walking Festival’s big May goal, and open the first page of our book club pick, 52 Ways to Walk by Annabel Streets, including a clip from my interview with Annabel Abbs about The Walking Cure. Ready? Let’s trade the feed for the field, pop your earphones in, step outside, and let London do what it does best, surprise you. 

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Paula Harvey is building something rare in North London: a permanent outdoor learning and wellbeing space where every family can belong, including SEND families who are too often split apart by inaccessible provision. Through Urban Forest Tribe CIC, she is turning a blank canvas site in N11 into a thriving Forest School home, but she needs support now - funding, materials (especially timber), and volunteers. You can help by donating to the Tribe Roots for Resilience campaign and sharing it with your network: https://www.avivacommunityfund.co.uk/p/tribe-roots-for-resilience

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Recorded live at This is Nature+ at Camley Street Natural Park, this episode brings together London National Park City Ranger Becky Lyon and Imogen Malpas (founder of climate-conscious clubbing collective Club SOL) to explore how we can make contact with nature through everyday culture, sound, and the senses. 

In this episode

• What counts as “nature engagement”, and who gets to define it
• Raves, coffee, sculpture, and other “unexpected” routes into nature connection
• Touch, sound, smell, and the body as forms of knowledge (and resistance)
• Participation over perfection, making invitations rather than outputs
• Community, conflict, joy, and why gathering still matters

About the guests

Becky Lyon - artist, PhD researcher, and London National Park City Ranger (Barnet)

• Read: Becky Lyon’s Ranger story
  
  London National Park City
• Explore: The Department of Artecology
  
  London National Park City
• Follow: @elastic_fiction

Imogen Malpas - founder of Club SOL, former environmental journalist, currently at medical school

• Follow: @clubs0l Instagram
• Read more: In conversation with Imogen Malpas 

Links and references

• Visit: Camley Street Natural Park
  
  London Wildlife Trust
• Follow: OpenAREA on Instagram
• More from this series:
  • Open Area Podcast Ep 1 - Rachy McEwan and Kalpana Arias
    
    London National Park City
  • Open Area Podcast Ep 2 - Moja Collective (Shukura Babirye)
    
    London National Park City

Credits

Part of a limited edition podcast series created in collaboration with Open Area, recorded live at Camley Street Nature Park during the Open Area This is Nature+ takeover.
London National Park City

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Recorded live at Camley Street Nature Park, in collaboration with Open Area.

Moja Collective founder Shukura Babirye sits down with Ijaz Kato for a warm, honest conversation about how an Instagram page celebrating diverse experiences in nature unexpectedly grew into a monthly walking community - and why slowing down, paying attention and sharing access matters.

They explore how Moja Collective’s walks evolved from social hikes into mindfulness-led outdoor experiences, what it means to “lead” as a facilitator rather than a figurehead, and the practical realities of making nature feel safer and more welcoming - from risk assessments and group size, to storytelling, land stewardship and the subtle ways we can reduce our impact on wildlife and other visitors.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why Moja Collective started - and how it evolved “by accident”
• Making nature feel closer than people think - from London to the North Downs
• Turning a hike into a mindfulness practice - silence, senses and slowing down
• Community building without burnout - and how to design for longevity
• Safety on walks - preparation, accessibility and helping people feel settled
• Storytelling, land oversight, and what stewardship looks like in practice
• How Moja Collective signposts other groups and opportunities (no gatekeeping)
• Balancing people’s wellbeing with respect for place - sound, space and wildlife

Guests:

• Shukura Babirye - Moja Collective founder
  
  
• Ijaz Kato - interviewer
  
  

Find Moja Collective events:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/mojacollective-76841278903

Recorded at: Camley Street Nature Park
In collaboration with: Open Area

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What if your phone could help you care for the trees on your street, not just scroll past them

In this live conversation – recorded in collaboration with Open Area at Camley Street Nature Park in October 2025 – artist Rachy McEwan and technologist, guerrilla gardener and nature rights campaigner Kalpana Arias explore how art, code and community action can work together to protect and restore urban nature.

From felled sycamores behind a London flat to cyber gardens and Tamagotchi-style tree sensors, they ask how we can stop seeing ourselves as just consumers online and start acting as ecological citizens – in our cities, on our streets and inside our digital worlds.

In this episode

We talk about:

Money Trees – how three 100-year old sycamores inspired a multi-year art project turning threatened trees into 3D models and digital assets that fund real-world care

How London currently “values” trees – and why some are worth £1.6m while others are valued at nothing

Using photogrammetry, GIS mapping and blockchain to give community trees visibility and protection

Kalpana’s journey from regenerative agriculture and farmers’ rights to guerrilla gardening and civic tech in London

nowadays and Glitch – a cyber gardening tool that helps people map “cyber gardens”, learn green skills and connect to local species and spaces

The idea of environmental generational amnesia – and why every new generation accepts a more degraded “normal” for nature

Seeing technology as part of our ecology, not the enemy – “naturalising the machine” in the age of the symbiocene

Tree Goji – hacking Tamagotchis and soil sensors so you “look after” a digital pet and a real tree at the same time

Data, rights and forests – what it means to talk about data rights for nature as more trees and habitats are scanned and digitised

Multisensory worlds – why smell, touch and sound matter just as much as screens in how we connect with nature

How projects like Money Trees and Glitch can support children and young people, bridging gaming culture, tech and hands-on time outdoors

About our guests

Rachy McEwan
Rachy is a London-based interdisciplinary artist whose work spans painting, scent, fungi, mycelium sculptures and digital worlds. Her long-term project Money Trees uses 3D scanning, animation and community participation to record threatened trees in London, increase their perceived value and channel resources into their care and protection.

Kalpana Arias
Kalpana is a guerrilla gardener, technologist and nature rights campaigner, and a trustee of London National Park City. Through her social enterprise nowadays, she creates tools and platforms that decentralise technology and put it back in the hands of communities – including Glitch, a cyber gardening tool that helps people learn green skills, map local ecologies and act as ecological citizens.

Links

Open Area

Money Trees – Rachy’s project mapping and modelling London’s threatened trees

Glitch – cyber gardening tool developed by nowadays

Camley Street Nature Park – the urban nature reserve where this conversation was filmed

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We visited a new pocket park carved out from the Coulsdon South station car park, created to tempt the local cycling group (and everyone else) away from the tarmac and into a greener, friendlier meeting place. What started as “somewhere nicer to wait with a coffee” has grown into an outdoor classroom and community hub: rail-safety learning for Cubs, Scouts, nearby schools and adults with learning needs; a rest spot for commuters, cyclists and ramblers; and a platform for local volunteering.

Emily joined volunteers to discuss how the space came together on a tight budget, why planting choices matter, how social value is measured, and how the community will shape the space in the future. 

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Community voices shaping a new kind of park in East London

At the launch of The Listening Project report, we spoke with volunteers and directors from East London Waterworks Park about what four years of paid listening taught them, and how co-design can turn a fenced concrete depot into a free, biodiverse park with natural swimming, learning spaces, and a genuine sense of welcome for everyone.

In this episode you will hear

• Why ELWP put inclusivity at the heart of the project, and what they learned from 100+ participants across 19 community groups
• Practical design ideas that make people feel safe and included, from friendly wardens to clean accessible loos, quiet spaces, and end-to-end access
• How cultural relationships with nature shape comfort with wildness and swimming, and how to introduce blue space well
• Consent-based governance, inclusive volunteering, and how charities can use these findings in their own work

Links and resources

• Read and share the Inclusivity page, with the Listening Project report and principles: https://www.elwp.org.uk/Inclusivity.htm
  
  elwp.org.uk
• Join a volunteer circle, from Inclusivity to Design to Learning: https://www.elwp.org.uk/JoinUs.htm

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