A vegetation management team from Lanes Group Rail has planted wild flower gardens and built a bug hotel to create the perfect destination for insects and other wildlife close to London’s newest rail line.
By completing the biodiversity project, the team has transformed three landscaped areas around the Plumstead Maintenance Facility on the Elizabeth Line into a haven for birds, bees and other bugs.
LGR has completed the first phase of works on the site in south east London, and plans to return to create a vegetable garden nearby, for depot staff who want to tend their own workplace allotment.
Knowledge and enthusiasm
Elizabeth line Net Zero Programme Lead, Richard Bowman, said: “Lanes Group Rail has been a fantastic partner to work with on our biodiversity net gain ambitions at our Plumstead Maintenance Facility.
“Their support, knowledge and enthusiasm has made this initial project a great success, and we hope to build on this relationship to deliver many more environmental initiatives across the network in the near future.”
The week-long ecology uplift project was carried out on behalf of the Elizabeth Line, as part of a wider sustainability programme it is rolling out along the 73-mile-long route.
Other programme elements the Elizabeth Line has identified include installing electric vehicle charging stations and solar panels and decarbonising buildings.
Positive for environment
LGR Business Development Manager Bill Waring said: “We were pleased that the Elizabeth Line invited us to carry out a project that’s so positive for the natural environment.
“It was also enthusiastically welcomed by the facility’s staff who were pleased they will be sharing their workspace with a richer variety of wildlife as a result of our work.
“Members of our vegetation management team were also excited to be involved in such an imaginative project. We look forward to participating with rail partners on similar biodiversity schemes in the future.”
In a four-day work programme, the Lanes work team transformed three areas of open ground, with a combined area of 190 square metres, around the maintenance facility, one of a number of facilities, depots and sidings along the Elizabeth Line.
Building bug hotels
They removed weeds and dead vegetation, laid weed membrane plus bark mulch and low-fertility top soil, and planted new wildlife-friendly plants, including mondo grasses and purple creeping flox.
The Lanes team also worked with members of the Elizabeth Line’s Safety, Health and Environment and Corporate Environment teams to host an ecology day to build bug hotels for the facility.
These were created by combining wooden pallets, bricks and cut vegetation, all materials left over from the project, to form a multi-storey bio-diverse home for inspects.
Emerging wildlife
Lanes Vegetation Management Supervisor Kristian Nishanov, who led the work team, said: “Everyone was very happy to be creating something positive for wildlife and for colleagues working at the facility.
“It will take some months for the full effect what we’ve put in place to be seen. But, by next spring and summer, more wildlife of all sorts will be emerging on the site thanks to this programme.”
The Elizabeth Line was fully opened by May 2024. It has 41 stations from Reading, in Berkshire, to Shenfield in Essex, and Abbey Wood in South East London, with 220 million passenger journeys recorded in 2023-24.
Lanes Group Rail is part of Lanes Group, the UK’s largest drainage and wastewater services company. Its vegetation management teams deliver vegetation control services for Transport for London on the London Underground and London Overground networks, as well as on the Elizabeth Line.