Communication Breakdown

What can happen when a community project and different parts of its local authority are not all on the same page

Andy Chapman

5/14/20262 min read

On 9th May, we held the second of our public engagement events at Siebert Road and Westcombe Hill. The sun shone, plenty of people stopped by for a chat, a few families with their children helped with litter picking and species identification and our resident Wilder Greenwich ecologist did a species survey that logged nearly 150 species of flowering plants, grasses, trees, insects and pollinators at Siebert Road and 65 at Westcombe Hill.

Then, a few days later we were horrified to see that Siebert Road had been strimmed by the Royal Borough of Greenwich's contractors as part of a much wider mow of verges and other green spaces in the vicinity. The before and after pictures below show the extent of the devastation. What was especially galling was this had been done during "no mow May"!

The lesson for us from this is that we need to re-double our efforts to ensure that all the relevant stakeholders are familiar with the sites we are working on and that we have a clear understanding with them about the plans for managing the land.

Postscript - 26th May 2026

We recently had a very constructive conversation with Royal Borough of Greenwich about this incident and they have agreed to remove both sites from the schedule for mowing until further notice. They reiterated that they are keen to see maintenance work being done so as to boost biodiversity whenever possible. So it feels like we are back on a proper footing now!

Siebert Road South, 2nd May 2026

Siebert Road South, 2nd May 2026

Siebert Road South, 9th May 2026

Email

info@wildergreenwich.org