The Big Give appeal is now closed for this year, but if you'd like to donate to support our work with friends groups, you can contribute here - many thanks!

CPRE London’s Christmas appeal will help protect the capital’s parks, by supporting and strengthening friends of green space groups.

London parks have never been so important. It’s widely acknowledged that access to green space plays an important role in addressing physical and mental health inequalities. Parks and gardens can also help alleviate the impact of climate change and declining natural habitats. But, at the same time, local authority funding pressures mean the capital’s green spaces are not receiving the investment or maintenance they need.

Help at hand

Luckily, a small army of volunteers, forming around 900 friends groups across the city, is working hard to improve and promote these spaces. And CPRE London is helping to power up these groups with training, advice, networking and community-building, and planting materials through the GoParksLondon and London Friends of Green Spaces Network projects.

Even more neglected green areas can benefit from community love and active involvement with your support. Specifically, your donations can help protect London parks through funding hedgerow planting and training for friends in green skills and setting up new groups. Additionally, you will help us link groups to funding or free resources and ensure they have access to support and advice from our highly experienced coordinator, Laura Collins.

The difference your support makes

To that end, we’re seeking to raise £25,000, which will help fund:

• 2,000 metres of new hedgerow in the 2024/5 planting season. We will do this working with friends groups and other community groups such as schools. Funds go towards the provision of hedgerow whips for planting and related training.
• 25 new friends groups in 2025, focusing on areas of multiple deprivation, to build capacity in the London Friends of Green Space Network.
• Upgrades to the Go Parks digital platform to enable friends groups to easily create, edit and maintain their own webpages on the GoParksLondon website – promoting their sites and providing a valuable up-to-date source of accurate green space information. This will allow our fantastic London Friends of Green Space Network coordinator to support the existing network and promote the formation of new groups.