Pollinating London Together (PLT) has continued to make great progress despite the recent pandemic.

PLT’s official launch was celebrated on the 16th of September 2021 at Mansion House in the City of London, hosted by The Lady Mayoress Hilary Russell. This was followed by a dinner at Grocers’ Hall. This event enabled more people to become familiar with PLT’s work in ensuring that natural pollinators can thrive.

Lady Mayoress of the City of London Hilary Russell said:

“I congratulate the members of Pollinating London Together on what you have achieved so far, and I’m pleased that we can now celebrate your official launch.

“It’s important to emphasise that this is about more than bees, it is about all natural pollinators and their contribution to our ecosystem. We’re very excited about Pollinating London Together and its scope to regreen our great city, which is one of the Lord Mayor’s priorities.

“This pan-livery project is in the best tradition of our historic livery companies, bringing them together in a project which will benefit the people of London and make this a greener and better city. I encourage all livery companies to go green and get involved.”

During the last year, PLT has built an organisation, secured critical City funding, and created its business plan. PLT is a pan-livery company initiative to raise importance of the awareness of biodiversity and pollinators and their recent substantial decline. Furthermore, one of the main objectives behind PLT is to draw attention to the importance and plight of pollinators, such as solitary, honey and bumble bees.

Anthony Bickmore, who is Master of the Wax Chandlers and on the PLT Board, said:

“Today we are celebrating that we’ve launched this new initiative called Pollinating London Together, which creates spaces that are good for pollinators while being aware of the decline in pollinators.

“Pollinators are about the food we eat; it’s about our mental health in terms of the quality of green spaces, so it touches on our lives in many different ways.

“We are one of millions of species on the planet, and if we as humans trash the other bits of biodiversity, we’re going to have a real problem. We need to take more care of it and recognise the value that the biodiversity has.”

PLT aims to be educational and informative to children and adults alike regarding the importance of pollinators to everyone and their crucial role in maintaining biodiversity, our food supply, and the health of our environment. Additionally, PLT seeks to create and advocate for green spaces, starting in the City of London. This will enable workers and visitors to the City to benefit from the serenity of those green spaces.

PLT Chairman John Burton concluded the launch event at Grocer’s Hall by stating:

“We’ve accomplished an amazing amount during our first year. Going forward we are looking at a business plan for next year, key components of which are continuing to develop the audits of green spaces and encouraging pollinator-friendly planting so that we can see the changes in City green spaces over time.

“We hope that our bid for funding will allow us to employ an ecologist who will, through us, work with other like-minded groups to promote green spaces that are pollinator friendly. This will strengthen bee corridors across adjacent London boroughs and through the City. Development will be monitored in a way that contributes to London’s green space database.”

By Marissa Thomas