A group of volunteers from UK Power Networks swapped the office for nature as they gave a helping hand to enhance biodiversity and attract wildlife to a substation near Croydon, south London.
15 volunteers swapped their office-based roles for a day in the green spaces around the substation site.
The company offer employees two paid volunteer days each year to give back to local communities on the network and the group decided to use one of theirs as a team to give back by taking part in green-fingered activities.
The electricity firm employees improved the structure of the unique chalk grassland, as well as clearing invasive laurel and holly undergrowth.
Once these tasks were completed the work was not yet done – they then cleared the whole area of litter, then built and installed numerous bird boxes to attract local wildlife.
The conservation day was deemed a success and is one of many that different departments can take part in.
UK Power Networks made a concerted effort to allow employees to give something back with their Donate a Day scheme – where each employee in the 6000-plus strong workforce is given two days per year to volunteer in a community-based project.
Shaun Lynch, sustainability adviser at UK Power Networks, said: “We enhanced the structural diversity of the habitat through better management to create a good condition chalk grassland. By creating chalk grassland scrapes to improve vegetation structure and
removing poor quality vegetation from the top ground layer. The area was then sown with a native seed mix especially designed for chalk grassland, this is to increase the number of species, species include bird’s-foot-trefoil, wild basil and salad burnet,
betony, cowslip, kidney vetch, small scabious, oxeye daisy and wild marjoram – to name a few.
“We also enhanced the structure of the ancient woodland through better management by creating open sections within the woodland to enable greater structure and diversity of the wood. This involved removing laurel shrub that is known to be invasive and changes
the condition of the soil which can hinder the development of native woodland species if not managed – a thorough bird nest check of the area was conducted prior to starting any works. We then stacked cut wood within the woodland to create dead hedges and
habitat piles while building and installing a variety of nest boxes suitable for birds such as blue tits and robins.”
Joanna Collinson, risk and assurance advisor at UK Power Networks said: “Our Risk and Assurance team really appreciate the opportunity to be able to have volunteering days from UK Power Networks. It was very rewarding to use one of the donate-a-day to improve
biodiversity on one of our sites, as nature and wider environmental issues are important to us and there are increased concerns about sustainability and wildlife.
“Our team also benefitted greatly, a day with nature and working as a team brought us closer together and we have had many laughs and lots of fun throughout the day. It is great that we can collaborate with the Environmental and Sustainability team and achieve
so much.”
Mathew Frith, director of Policy and Research at London Wildlife Trust said: “We very much welcome this action to help enhance part of a nationally important habitat. This part of Croydon supports fantastic biodiversity on chalk grassland and woodland habitats,
but without management, the chalk grassland can lose its value through encroachment from some shrubs such as cherry laurel.”
