Habitat creation

Creating, restoring and improving habitats, the places where local wildlife live, is extremely important. They support a wide range of different species, including those that are rare or protected by law. They also help to maintain local biodiversity, which is the variety of living organisms in an area.

The River Thames Scheme will work closely with communities and local wildlife and environmental groups to maximise the environmental benefit of the scheme in order to protect and improve the local environment.

We will provide new high quality habitats. We will replace habitats where they are unavoidably lost or changed when the scheme is built. We will also improve and enhance existing areas to leave more areas for wildlife than before. Our habitat work could include wetlands, grasslands, woodlands, rivers, ponds and hedgerows.

Work is ongoing to understand the habitats and species within the scheme area. You may have seen surveyors on site gathering this information. This allows us to plan how we can improve, restore and extend wildlife habitats. Find out more about our survey work.