We have a wonderful announcement!
Our funding drive for the future Costons Lane Nature reserve has been successful!! We wanted to especially thank Transform Your Space for donating £9,577, Greystar and Greenford Quay whose donation of £7,000 made up our remaining difference and ensured the project’s success.
We particularly want to call out Andrew McRae and Gemma Holmes for their extremely generous private donations of £500 each but we want to thank everyone who donated, from £1, £5, £10, £20, £50 or £100. It all helps tremendously and we couldn’t be more thankful to you all and we couldn’t have done it without every single one of you!
We set up the funding drive to allow for over funding so it’s not too late to donate if you are able (visit https://www.spacehive.com/ealing-wildlife-group-nature-reserve.) The over funding will go towards things like extra classroom equipment, bat boxes, bird boxes, native plants, classes and lectures, trail cams, a static bat detector, the possibilities are endless.
Nina Provencal, Events Manager for Greystar said: “Greenford Quay are delighted to be involved in this project, working with the local community and continually looking at ways to help bring communities together is a huge part of our agenda”.
We Need You!
We hope to get the project started in midsummer and depending on the lockdown situation we would like to get people volunteering as soon as we can. This reserve is for all of us in Ealing Wildlife Group and we would love everyone to come and be involved in its creation and evolution. Learn about conservation, urban wildlife, native plants, meet new people and most importantly have fun! Comment below if you are interested in getting involved and volunteering!
What is Costons Lane Nature Reserve?
We will take the old disused and flood prone allotment site & turn it into a nature reserve & education centre. We plan to clear rubble, reinstate the pond, provide trails around the site. We’ll encourage native plants, & manage for native wildlife.
We want to install a storage area for our equipment and teaching facilities, bird feeders & houses, bat & bug homes, hedgehog homes, habitat features for frogs, toads, newts & reptiles such as slow worms. We want to plant native & ornamental flowers to help pollinators, & install log piles for rare stag beetles. We would like to install hides so people can come and observe the wildlife, take photos and learn about the wonders of the natural world.
We would encourage citizen science by hosting Bioblitzes as a chance for the community to help us record species for organizations like Greenspace Information for Greater London, Bat Conservation Trust, London Wildlife Trust, RSPB. We could also host schools and scouts groups & have community open days. To learn more visit https://www.spacehive.com/ealing-wildlife-group-nature-reserve
Once we get up and running we will be documenting our progress on all of our social media channels so be sure to follow us to keep up to date!
Living on Costons Lane with young children I am excited by this prospect and hope to help in any way I can
Great job and we (two people) are here to help
I am new to the group but already love all the photos and videos. I would be interested in helping to get the nature reserve up and running well.
I am so so glad about this – count me in – will help wherever I can. Can’t do much heavy work but happy to do admin, publicise etc etc
Yes v happy to help.
What wonderful news! I’d love to hear all about how things progress and I volunteer my services to help however I can. S xx
I’d love to volunteer in some capacity at weekends.
I would love to help in any way I can to help build the nature reserve and really looking forward to learning more about wildlife.
Sounds like a great project. Well done.
Hi Caroline, very happy to get involved, again brilliant hard work on your part to get all that funding xx
Hi would love to get involved in this! Live in Ealing and have a lot of sag pare time till September, ready to start whenever!!
Congratulations on such an achievement. I am very interested in volunteering and being part of this great community project.
Happy to volunteer. No particular skills to bring, I’m afraid.
I am so happy that this project has taken off. I am disabled and cannot access many spaces to see the wildlife. Despite this I can perform some outdoor tasks and look forward to volunteering my skills in the reserve. A love of nature and thirst for knowledge makes me proud to see such wonderful spaces being created and as an educator I can’t wait to learn so much more from the amazing members of EWG.
Would love to volunteer and help out
Hello, I would be interested to volunteer!
Look forward to hearing from you. 🕊
I am interested in being a volunteer
Hey this is very good news ! Looking forward to volunteer and help, as much as I can- once the locked down has lifted! All the best!!
We would like to volunteer and help with this really positive project. Andrew and Toni
Wonderful news. I would love to help as a volunteer too
Please not on this nature reserve!! While I appreciate children need open spaces for sport this appears to be an incredibly insensitive use of green space. We need to preserve our biodiversity at every opportunity.
Really happy to help. Can contribute hilarious boomer banter and stories about the old days. Also pretty good at IT and digital stuff and databases. Would be happy to be responsible for packed lunches for volunteers. I’m a bit creaky but my old man would love to help with digging etc.
Great to hear a conservation project happening in Ealing. Would love to volunteer
Congratulations to all involved in making this happen! A wonderful initiative that will benefit generations to come. Our family would love to be involved.
Would love to volunteer too!!! Well done to everyone involved xx
Well done everyone involved 😁 I would love to help wherever I can