We are the Streatham Common Co-operative (SCCoop), a community run social enterprise managing all the services from gardening and litter picking the events in the Streatham Rookery since 2015. We were the first community group with direct responsibility for managing a Lambeth Park and one of only a few in London.
In 2016, we took over the Paddling Pool on Streatham Common saving it from closure, and in 2017 started regular conservation work in the Streatham Common Local Nature Reserve (LNR). In 2018 we started work to restore the cascade co-funded by money SCCoop has raised from the community, the Heritage Lottery Fund and Lambeth.
We manage all aspects of the grade 2 listed gardens, from horticulture and maintence to volunteering and public events. In 2020 we were awarded gold in the Royal Horticultrul Society's London in Bloom, partly due to work wiht the community during the pandemic.
The Streatham LNR is the only LNR in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is surrounded by some of the most deprived neighbourhoods in the country where often access to open space and nature is limited.
Over 50% of Streatham Common is designated as a Local Nature Reserve, it is designated for extensive woodland, acidic, meadow and wet grasslands and standing and fallen dead wood habitat.
Our aim is to build on our success to date and provide a greater range of services and events for all users of Streatham Common, whilst improving the range of habitats within this unique LNR for the diverse local wildlife.
