The City of London Corporation is celebrating after winning five honours in the 2022 London in Bloom competition.
The City of London was awarded Gold and revealed as the overall winner in the Town category.
West Ham Park, in Newham, also took Gold and category winner in the Large Park of the Year prize. Golders Hill Park in Barnet and Queen’s Park in Brent also won Gold in the same category.
The Hill Garden Pergola in Hampstead Heath won Gold in the Walled Garden section.
All these sites are managed by the City Corporation as registered charities.
London in Bloom awards are assessed by expert judges. They celebrate and recognise the passion Londoners have for greening the capital city.
Entries are invited every year from local authorities, parks, friends’ groups, community groups, and schools across London who want to improve their local environment.
Chair of the City of London Corporation’s Open Spaces Committee, Caroline Haines, said:
“These results are a testament to the exceptional work that our staff, volunteers, and friends’ groups achieve all year round.
“London in Bloom is about celebrating and recognising the passion we all have for a cleaner, greener city.
“We are absolutely dedicated to protecting and providing green spaces across the capital for the benefit of all Londoners and our work with local community groups is a really important part of this.”
The City Corporation is a major green spaces provider. It protects over 11,000 acres of open space in London and south-east England – including Burnham Beeches, Epping Forest, and Hampstead Heath – and over 200 smaller ones in the Square Mile, investing over £38m a year.
They remove an estimated 16,000 tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere every year, equivalent to 44% of the City Corporation’s annual carbon footprint.
These sites, most of which are charitable trusts, are run at little or no cost to the communities that they serve.
They include important wildlife habitats, Special Areas of Conservation, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, and National Nature Reserves. They are protected from being built on by special legislation.
