Thomas’s London Day Schools promise to replace mature hedge at Dukes Meadows

The field where the hedgerow has been removed; photograph Joseph Forshaw

Schools group has “positive” meeting with environmental groups and promises to make good the damage

Thomas’s London Day Schools have promised to replace the mature hedge their contractor ripped out at Dukes Meadows in Chiswick in the course of creating playing fields.

Allotment holders and environmental groups in Chiswick expressed outrage when they discovered the private school group, which charges pupils £10,000 a term, had destroyed well established wildlife habitats, especially as it is nesting season.

Hounslow Council’s Ecology and Nature Recovery Manager, along with the Parks Manager, have visited the site and are reviewing the scope and timing of the work carried out by Thomas’s London Day Schools.

READ ALSO: Hedgehog home and ‘wildlife haven’ destroyed to build private school sports ground

The area where Thomas’s London Day Schools are creating sports pitches; photograph Joseph Forshaw

Thomas’s say they removed the ‘weeded area that had overgrown into the demise of the pitch boundary’ and it was always their intention to plant a new hedge when they had completed the work to create nine sports pitches for Thomas’s College in Richmond, which is set to open in September 2025.

The Chief Operating Officer of the schools, Matt Nicholl, met Dennis Flaherty, Neal Gordon and Roy Foreshaw from the Chiswick Horticultural and Allotment Society last week, with Karen Liebreich from Abundance London and Jo Gilbert of Wild Chiswick, after The Chiswick Calendar reported that hundreds of metres of hedge and scrub had been taken out.

The new playing fields share a boundary with the Chertsey Road allotments all along one side, which is where the hedge has been removed.

Temporary fencing installed by the contractor; photograph Joseph Forshaw

Both sides say the meeting was positive.

The Chiswick Calendar understands London Day Schools have agreed to organise a meeting between their ecologist and the group and to share the ecology assessment they had done on the site; to share photographs their contractor took before and after the hedge was removed and to hold regular meetings with the group to check on progress.

They have promised not to remove further potential wildlife features without liaising, and when the work is complete to ‘make good’ the removed hedge with mature plants. A ten metre length of mature hedging can be a habit for over 60 different species in the UK, including birds, invertebrates and small mammals.

Jo Gilbert says the replacement hedgerow will need to be the full length of the area removed:

‘Our request is to ensure a substantial hedge with the correct depth, maturity and height is replanted. It will need to be a minimum of three meters in depth and two metres in height.

‘Planting a thin hedgerow made up from whips will not suffice to replace what has been removed.  Such a hedge would take at least seven years to reach maturity – if at all.  Useless for wildlife.

‘The recommendation is five woody species per 30 metres using, for example, hazel, hawthorn, dog rose, maple and blackthorn.  Brambles patches are still important to support a variety of species, as are trees planted every ten metres or so.  Bats also use such corridors for feeding on flying insects and for navigation to other areas’.

The hedgerow which was removed, which provided cover and included plum, bramble, damson and sloe amongst other sources of food for wildlife; photograph Joseph Forshaw

Use of Dukes Meadows

The construction work has raised questions about the use of Dukes Meadows, which is Metropolitan Open Land, intended to be managed by the local authority to keep it as an amenity for the public.

In the London Plan the Mayor of London supports the policy that:

‘The strongest protection should be given to London’s Metropolitan Open Land and inappropriate development refused, except in very special circumstances, giving the same level of protection as in the Green Belt. Essential ancillary facilities for appropriate uses will only be acceptable where they maintain the openness of Metropolitan Open Land’.

Hounslow Council leases this part of Dukes Meadows to Old Meadownians FC, who in turn sublet it to the school group. Dukes Meadows is increasingly being used by private schools for sport.

Residents have raised concerns with the Council that not only are spors clubs removing wildlife habitats – Chiswick Rugby Club have also removed over 100 metres of hedge – but they are enclosing the land.

Some of the rubbish which had been dumped there; photograph Jo Gilbert

Council Leader and Chiswick MP meet environmental groups

Chiswick Cllr Amy Croft held a meeting on Saturday with Karen, Jo and Neal, to hear their concerns and follow up within the Council to try and ensure the destruction of wildlife habitats does not happen again.

Council Leader Shantanu Rajawat and MP for Hammersmith & Chiswick Andy Slaughter were also at the meeting.

Cllr Croft, who represents Chiswick Riverside ward, and Cllr Rajawat said they would investigate and come back to the group with answers about the details of the management of Dukes Meadows – the nature of the agreement between the Greater London Council and London Borough of Hounslow, and what permissions and responsibilities the Council had agreed with tenants.

They also promised to consider what systems were in place within the Council to make sure its commercial and planning departments consulted its ecology officer over work such as this.

An environment worth preserving

Neal Gordon has had an allotment there for decades. He said it had been a perfect wildlife haven, home to kestrels, starlings and blue jays. Hedgehogs have also been spotted at the Chertsey Road allotments. It is one of only a few places in Chiswick where they still survived.

“Where else in Chiswick can you get peace and quiet like that?” he said.

He has taken this video, walking the length of the boundary where the hedge was taken out to show how long it had been before Thomas’s London Day Schools removed it.

Neal was told by the contractor that the intention was to enclose the field, but subsequently Thomas’s London Day Schools have told the group of allotment holders and environmental campaigners this is not the case, but that they intend to put in a fence on one side only, adjacent to the allotments.

The fence they have put up already is a temporary safety fence while work is being carried out.

Neal’s greatest concern is public access:

“I sometimes jog around the outside where I encounter many people doing the same , more often than that there is on most days students from Chiswick school (just across the road) kicking a ball or just letting of steam after a day in the classroom!

“I went to Chiswick school in the 1970s and we did the same thing as have many others in the years in between!”

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar