Our Vision for Slough
Our ‘Saving the Salt Hill Stream’ project is working with local people, community organisations and schools in Slough who are keen to improve the Salt Hill stream and its surroundings to create a cleaner healthier watercourse that the whole of Slough can be proud of.
Our ambition is to create new wetlands in Slough, firstly in Salt Hill Park and later in Baylis Park. In some places in Slough the stream is hidden, inaccessible or forced to go underground, so our plan is to uncover it and make it more accessible for people to enjoy and to attract wildlife. We are working with the local community so that we can all be part of the solution and we want to listen to your ideas to ensure these wetlands spaces become an integral part of the Slough community.
Why the Salt Hill stream?
The Salt Hill stream is no longer thriving. Fish and other wildlife are struggling to survive and many people feel the stream is a problem rather than an asset to Slough. The future looks bleak but we want to turn that around!
We will work with local people to understand the root causes of what’s going wrong with the stream and how we can fix it for everyone’s benefit. By holding community meetings we’ll continue to consult with locals on how to best make improvements that the whole community can be proud of and get involved in.
Why wetlands?
Historically many of our cities in the UK have been built on and around wetlands because they offer a natural water supply and fertile land for agriculture. But growth in our towns and cities has meant that wetlands are disappearing at an alarming rate, which causes problems with flooding, pollution and loss of wildlife habitat. The good news is that we can recreate these vital wetlands, which is what we aim to do in the parks in Slough!
Urban wetlands provide many benefits to wildlife and people including:
- they’re good for our health and wellbeing by giving us beautiful outdoor spaces for everyone to enjoy
- providing great places for children to explore, play and learn about nature
- they decrease the risk of flooding
- reducing the impact of pollution by filtering out harmful substances
- they attract and provide a home for wildlife.
So by improving the local environment, transforming the Salt Hill stream and creating new wetlands areas we can make Slough a better place to live for everyone.
The project so far
Our achievements so far include:
- built up a core group of volunteers who have dedicated over 400 hours to renovating Temple Wood – a woodland and stream in Chalvey
- over 2000 children have taken part in World Wetland Day on the 2nd February 2018 where they learnt about wetland wildlife, dressed up as their favourite wetland animals, made wildlife masks and monitored local wildlife
- partnered with four primary schools in Slough and taught over 1600 children about the importance of wetlands. More children are continuing to learn through school Eco-club activities
- ran the ‘Stop the Litter Bugs’ competition, where 365 youngsters submitted a poster design to discourage littering in parks in Slough
- created a new citizen science group to monitor wildlife and water quality in the Salt Hill stream.
We need your help!
We need the support of everyone to save the Salt Hill stream. You can get involved as a community group, a school or as a business to take part in volunteering in wetland creation in the parks, education sessions in schools, in citizen science to monitor the health of the stream and wildlife or in helping us to make plans for the future stream.
Interested? Get in touch with our Conservation Officer Andy Graham on 07765 221784 or andy.graham@wwt.org.uk or go to WWT website for details of Slough's urban wetlands.