Community BlueScapes

Community BlueScapes is a partnership between London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, Barnes Common Limited, and WWT. We’re working together for people and nature.

What we want to achieve

We want to create healthier neighbourhoods in the Beverley Brook catchment in Richmond and ensure our communities are flood and extreme weather resilient in the near future.

Prepared communities

Our climate is changing. It is important that our people are prepared for extreme weather events. We are joining forces with local residents, organisations and environmental experts to create innovative solutions across the local landscape and prepare for floods.

We have met with community members on the Castelnau Estate in North Barnes and the Alton Estate in Roehampton, to understand the challenges across the landscape in these areas and to explore opportunities to create solutions, together.

Healthy landscapes

We want to transform our green spaces like parks, grasslands and leisure areas, and blue spaces like rivers and ponds, to help prepare the landscape for flooding. By rejuvenating these areas, we can also attract new wildlife to the area, boost biodiversity, and improve our health and wellbeing. It’s a win for everyone.

We are developing plans for healthy landscapes in Barnes Green, and installing two new reedbeds on Barnes Common in summer 2024. We are also discussing natural solutions in other green spaces within the area, alongside residents and organisations.

We want to deliver natural solutions to flooding. In restoring a more natural environment we will slow the flow of water through the landscape and use this water to grow new green and blue spaces that in turn protect us from flooding.

Empowered people

Together with help from our experts, we want local people to get involved in Community BlueScapes projects and help measure our success. With our findings, we want to empower other communities to increase resilience against flooding and extreme weather.

We will be inviting the public to monitor and evaluate the project and our natural landscapes to support future projects in Richmond and across the country

Empowering our residents to co-create these solutions with us is integral to our work. We understand that our local communities have the knowledge we need to improve the local environment, and we want you to help us shape the future of your neighbourhoods.

Our funding

Community BlueScapes has been awarded £6 million by the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programmes managed by the Environment Agency. The programme will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and help our residents adapt to a changing climate.

Find out more

Visit the Community BlueScapes website to learn more about our plans.

Explore the different ways you can prepare your property for flooding.