A huge "thank you " to the group who collected another 5 sacks of rubbish and recycling on 18th Feb, in the battle to clear the historic rubbish from the Staines Road end of the site.

The seasonal window for working in that area is closing as vegetation starts to regrow, and birds begin to look for nest sites. Much of the “easy stuff” is done – we’re down to the annoying, time-consuming, plastic fragments, and inaccessible areas.

Along Uxbridge Road, a new batch of single-use gloves has blown in from Sainsburys. We have raised this with them a number of times, and nothing seems to be done to address the issue. So we’re collecting the gloves and will present them to Sainsburys at their front desk, and we’ll contact their customer services people on social media.... again!

As well as Sainsburys plastic gloves, “I” and “J” collected a lot of stray golf balls, which will go back to the golf operator for re-use.

Finally, we planted the last of this year’s heather cuttings, some self-heal (a low-growing purple wildflower), and began the process of liberating the ditch alongside the golf course boundary from the overgrowing brambles. This will enhance the ditch's potential with more varied, sunny banks for basking insects, grass snakes and the like.

As a reminder, we mostly work with what is already on site. When we do bring new plants or seed to site, we only re-introduce locally native and appropriate species - carefully chosen to help Hampton Heath recover its biodiversity and character. We actively target Biodiversity Action Plan (BAP) Priority Species and Priority Habitats, and our aim is to manage the site for a "mosaic" of lowland acid/neutral grassland, heathland, scrub and woodland... a fragment of pre-industrial-era Hounslow Heath.
Every plant and every seed has been sustainably sourced, and so far, every one has local provenance.

We'd welcome your input and your engagement to this process, so please do get in touch but please don't bring wildflower seed or plants to the site without chatting to us first!