Environmentally friendly in central London

Quadron, in partnership with the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea (RBKC) Council, manages over 300 acres of green spaces in this prestigious London borough. The local authority has signed up to Local Agenda 21 and over a number of years has implemented policies to support its sustainable approach.

One of the main elements for cleaner grounds maintenance has been liquid petroleum gas powered grounds care equipment. Quadron’s Operations Director Clive Ivil, said “It’s been demonstrated that using alternative energy mowers produce greatly reduced emissions compared to diesel or petrol,” he says. “The performance is not affected, but we can point to our grounds care equipment and say to local authorities that our operation is much less damaging to local air quality and, potentially, public health.

Other elements of the green approach include:

	Over 250,000 bedding plants grown in miscanthus pots.
	Striving towards a completely peat-free operation, with a new growing medium under trial.
	A programme of green waste collection with x tones collected in 2003.
	Pesticides are strictly controlled, not only in the interests of public health and safety, but also because many of the Council’s ponds contain Koi carp grown on site – and reduced run-off of pesticides and herbicides benefits the fish and watercourses, as well as local wildlife.

Holland Park is Green Flag accredited and is Kensington & Chelsea’s biggest single green area covering some 54 acres of parks and gardens. It has a diverse bird and wild animal life, and its own Ecology Centre. The most recent project has involved the installation of bumble bee hives, to support a UK wide initiative in maintaining numbers of a much loved insect species, currently under environmental pressure.