Description:

Crane Valley Park which passes through the Richmond Borough was one of the winners of Boris Johnson's 'Help a London Park' scheme earlier this year. It was awarded 400k to be spent on enhancing the park by way of making it a safe, greener and cleaner green space for local communities and visitors to the borough to enjoy.

Much of the park is unkempt and run down, clearly unfit for young children or disabled visitors to use. The park  improvement project will focus on the stretch of park running from Craneford Field in Twickenham to Pevensey Road Nature Reserve, in the boroughs of Richmond and Hounslow. The park includes a variety of council-run green areas and so the project is being largely led by the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. Other interested parties are the London Borough of Hounslow ,Friends of the River Crane Environment (FORCE), London Wildlife Trust and the Greater London Authority (GLA).

Members of the community were invited to contribute to the Crane Valley Park consultation process and responses were then submitted to the steering group. The result of the consultation resulted in six main areas of works including, welcoming park entrances,reliable bridge and path accessibility and improved seating arrangements throughout the park and woodland areas. A huge majority expressed a preference for the use of natural and durable building materials including a call for natural and educational signage throughout.

Crane Park is known for the encouragement and preservation of its wildlife inhabitants and much of the improvements work will need to be planned around the breeding seasons of the resident birds and bats. This will mean that clearing and tree felling works will need to wait until Autumn this year.

Guide2Richmond would love to hear your views on the progress of this project.