Southwark Council welcomes London’s National Park City status

We welcome the news that London has become the world’s first National Park City.

With the Greener Belt Strategy and three new parks set to be created as part of the regeneration of Old Kent Road, our neighbourhood will make a big contribution to the continued greening of London.

On Monday, the Mayor of London signed a charter that seals London’s position as the world’s first National Park City. To secure this status, City Hall has helped to fund the creation of hundreds of green spaces and the planting of 170,000 trees across London.

The Old Kent Road area is already home to the immense and hugely popular Burgess Park. It also has many smaller but just as special green spaces, such as Brimmington Park, dotted throughout the neighbourhood. But over the next 25 years, Old Kent Road is set to become much greener still.

At the heart of the project is the Greener Belt Strategy.

The plan is to link together the area’s existing and new open spaces into a network that connects to parks in Wandsworth, Lambeth and Lewisham. It will accommodate nature and biodiversity, while also providing opportunities for play, sport, growing food and for simply siting down to rest. The belt will be greener in the widest sense; enabling children to walk or cycle to school and residents to walk to work or to the shops; to the library or local health centres.

The regeneration of Old Kent Road will add eight hectares of green space to the neighbourhood – that’s the equivalent of more than 11 football pitches.

It includes three brand new parks; one at Mandela Way, one at the old gasworks and a new linear park that will trace the route of the former Surrey Canal, linking  Burgess Park to Canada Water and eventually to the Isle of Dogs.

We’re currently drafting an Open Space strategy to help deliver the Greener Belt and will engage with the local community in the coming months. We’ve also updated our map of all the trees in Southwark with a preservation order, including those around Old Kent Road.

Green spaces are good for our health and wellbeing. They help to improve air quality; provide space for leisure and exercise and they’re good for people’s mental health too.

Therefore improving the local environment and making our neighbourhood a greener and more pleasant place to live and work is one of the council’s main objectives for the regeneration of Old Kent Road.

Find out more about the benefits of regenerating of Old Kent Road