How we’re showing cities can be a home to people and nature – Inside track

This post is by Mete Coban, deputy mayor of London for environment and energy.

For the start of London Climate Action Week, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has launched a new £12 million Green Roots Fund to boost London’s green and blue spaces. This isn’t just about parks and rivers, it’s about giving Londoners the chance to shape the places where we live. Together, we can create and restore parks, community gardens, wetlands and waterways across our city.

We’re doing this not just because nature is vital for tackling climate change and making our city more resilient to extreme weather, but because we believe all Londoners deserve the physical and mental health benefits that come with access to nature. And of course, we believe all Londoners deserve safe, secure housing too.

We don’t have to choose between homes and nature Like the mayor, I had the good fortune to grow up in secure, affordable social housing. That gave me the foundation to stay close to my family, friends and school, to feel part of my community. But today, too many young Londoners don’t have that stability. Over 90,000 children in London are homeless right now, many living in inadequate temporary accommodation because of years of underinvestment in social housing.

That is why we are using planning powers to drive up affordable housing in major developments to 42 per cent. Over 25,000 affordable homes were built in London last year, the most since GLA records began.

And here’s the important thing: we know this doesn’t have to come at the cost of nature. London is already one of the greenest cities in the world and we’re determined to make it even greener as we build the homes people need.

We won’t shy away from the challenges. Our priority will always be brownfield sites first. But the scale of the housing crisis means we have to be honest. Some developments will involve land currently classed as green belt. Let’s be clear: the green belt was never an environmental policy, it was designed to stop cities spreading outwards. Some of it is magical. But some of it is concrete; much of the land that is green is damaged by pollution and pesticides.

We have a huge opportunity here: where development happens, we’ll work to make these places rich in biodiversity again. Any land released will have to follow strict rules. We won’t just protect nature, we’ll improve it. And we’ll do it in partnership: with London’s brilliant environmental groups, with housing developers, and with communities themselves.

London is already showing how it can be done If you think you can’t build homes and boost nature, I’d invite you to Woodberry Down in Hackney, where families in social homes look out on the beautiful East Reservoir nature reserve. Or come to Barking Riverside, where we’re creating safe habitats for seals and water voles alongside homes for Londoners.

And if you think development always means harming nature, take a walk in Camley Street Nature Park, once a coal yard, now a haven for wildlife. Or visit Maxilla Gardens, created by Tayshan Hayden-Smith and local people beneath the Westway, a powerful reminder that when communities lead, change happens.

We know that people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are more than twice as likely to live in areas deprived of green space. That’s not right. The Green Roots Fund will help tackle this injustice by supporting Londoners to create the green spaces they want to see.

The Hackney I grew up in had far less nature than it does now. It would have been hard to imagine back then that car parks would become wildflower meadows, or that old reservoirs would be places to swim or spot wildlife. But we’ve shown what’s possible. With Green Roots, we’ll go further, creating more and better housing, more and better nature because, as the great reforming architect Berthold Lubetkin said, “nothing is too good for ordinary people.”