A quarter of a century ago, homebuyers looking for a flat on the Greenwich Peninsula saw the ecology park’s freshwater lake and realised this was the place for them.
The area was still largely undeveloped, and the new residents would have a host of empty car parks as neighbours. But the Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Park, about to open, and its lake, paid for by taxpayers, sealed the deal for many.
Fast forward to 2026, and residents of Greenwich Millennium Village (GMV) – many of whom have been there since its early days – say that water levels in the lake are dropping to such low levels each summer that fish have been seen gasping for air and the air has been filled with mosquitoes.
Heatwaves have not helped, and levels have recovered somewhat after heavy rain this autumn. But problems with a borehole that supplies the much-loved local landmark are primarily to blame or the issues in the summer, neighbours say – and they have struggled to get answers from the Cheshire-based charity that now owns the lake.
‘They called it Swan Lake’
“It was the reason I bought here,” Anthea Ameer told The Greenwich Wire. “There were maybe 60 or 70 ducks and geese every evening. It was delightful, even up to seven years ago.”
Her neighbour, Richard Chamberlain, also fell in love with the lake when he decided to move, in 2001. “We even had a swan or two,” he said. “On the original plans, they called it Swan Lake.”
But water levels have been falling in recent years, with the water becoming stagnant. “In the summer it was really smelly, and we had different kinds of mosquitoes,” Ameer said. “I had a ridiculous amount of bites. It was horrendous. It’s a nuisance that it’s not maintained properly.”
Colin Harper, another neighbour, took The Greenwich Wire to see the lake.
“I found out from the original residents that there was never supposed to be any fish in the lake, but some were dumped there,” he said. “So people put goldfish in, and there was some koi carp put in, which I think is what’s in here now. They’re enormous. You wouldn’t get a heron sitting there now if there wasn’t any fish – there he is, keeping his beady eye on his breakfast.”
Standing next to the ecology park gatehouse, Harper continued: “Last year it got to the point where all of that end of the lake, up to about this corner here, was walkable, and you could see the fish.
“There wasn’t enough water to cover the fish, and you could see their fins moving about. They were flapping around and gasping for air.”
Residents say that the lake is fed from a borehole in a chalk aquifer elsewhere on the peninsula – thought to be close to the O2 or the Blackwall Tunnel approach, but The Greenwich Wire has been unable to confirm where. It is a problem with that borehole which has caused the issues with the lake. More recently, water from the public mains has been diverted to top up the lake.
“They’re just using a Band-Aid rather than maintaining the lake,” Ameer said, while Chamberlain said that in the heatwaves, it did not take long for the extra water to evaporate.
The residents – who pay service charges to maintain other public spaces in GMV – have been trying to seek answers. Some 230 people have signed a petition to Greenwich Council seeking its help to protect the lake, and its response is expected next week.
While the council does not control the lake or ecology park, residents hope that cash secured from developers on the peninsula can be used to fix the borehole.
The lake’s little-known owner
It is half a century since gas production stopped on the Greenwich Peninsula, and 30 years since huge sums of public money were spent on remediating the land in time for the millennium. A government agency, English Partnerships, bought the land from British Gas in 1997, so both the Millennium Dome and the first stages of GMV could be constructed.
Those plans included the lake and ecology park, which reflected the peninsula’s origins as marshland. When the first GMV residents arrived in December 2000, they were greeted by Tony Blair, the prime minister, and Michael Heseltine, the former Conservative minister who had championed its regeneration in its earliest days.
The following year, the blocks close to the lake were ready, and Chamberlain saw himself living there for many years to come. “When I saw the flat and I saw the view, I said, ‘Oh, this is where I’ll be quite happy to die,’” he said.
While GMV was built by a private developer, English Partnerships created the lake and ecology park, which opened in 2002. But in 2011, the freehold to the lake and ecology park was transferred to a charity, the Land Trust, for a token £1. The rest of the peninsula was handed over to the mayor of London’s office the following year.
The Land Trust had started life as a team within English Partnerships dealing with former coalfields, but was spun out as an independent charity in 2010.
Based in Warrington, Cheshire, it controls 86 sites around the country including Southern Park – the main green space in GMV, funded by residents’ service charges – as well as the ecology park and its lake. Day-to-day management of the ecology park is carried out by another charity, The Conservation Volunteers.
Residents say The Land Trust is not responding to their calls for help. Romila Mangal, who created the petition, was furious when The Greenwich Wire spoke to her.
“The insolence of them! I’ve seen their accounts,” she said. “I’m a qualified accountant, so I can read accounts, and they’re absolutely rolling in money. They’re laughing all the way to the bank. They’ve also got finance that is not ring-fenced to other projects, so they’ve got consultancy income, and that money could be invested in there, and it’s not.”
Charities Commission figures show that The Land Trust has assets of £220 million, although the vast majority of this is an endowment from which it generates much of its income. Last year those assets generated £7.8 million to maintain its portfolio of sites.
“I’ve lived here for 25 years,” Mangal said. “I bought off-plan, so I’ve seen the entire village grow over the period. The lake has deteriorated. There’s been no maintenance, no money put in.”
Fears for the ecology park
Inside the ecology park there was also once a boardwalk around the lake, but in recent years that has fallen into disrepair, and part of it has now been closed off.
Mangal said: “That used to be open early in the morning. A walk around there refreshes the soul. But we haven’t got that anymore.”
Chamberlain said he feared that the lack of water in the lake was damaging the ecology park. “There are places where the little water channels have actually dried up,” he said. “Being dried up for over a year, where there just wasn’t enough water, winter or summer.”
Harper said: “This is bigger than just the residents around here. There’s always school trips [to the ecology park]. You never see anything like this where I come from in the Midlands.
“It’s just a nice place, right? Why not look after it if somebody had the gumption to do it in the first place? It costs less to maintain it than it does to let it become dilapidated and then put it back to how it was.”
Greenwich Council would not say how much was available from developments in the peninsula to spend on open spaces, but opened the door for groups to put a bid in for money in from its neighbourhood growth fund, which will soon be open for applications and is funded by cash from developers.
“While the council is not responsible for the management of the park, we welcome efforts to ensure this important community and environmental asset is well maintained,” a spokesperson said.
“We would encourage residents and local organisations to apply for funding to help with this through our Greenwich Neighbourhood Growth Fund. The funding comes from money we collect from developers through the community infrastructure levy to ensure that local people benefit from new housing development and commercial space created in the borough.”
What does The Land Trust say?
The Land Trust told The Greenwich Wire that it appreciated residents’ concerns.
“Investigations remain ongoing and we are working with partners and specialist advisers to identify the most appropriate solution, while also considering how the system can be made more resilient in the future,” it said.
“The borehole forms part of the wider infrastructure serving this area of the Greenwich Peninsula. We continue to work with relevant partners to better understand the wider system and identify the most effective route forward.”
It said that TCV volunteers were monitoring conditions within the ecology park, including the effect on wildlife.
Asked about the abandonment of the path through the ecology park, the trust said: “The route was closed following operational and safety considerations relating to its condition and the surrounding habitat management requirements. It is therefore no longer maintained as a public path.”
❤️ Get better local news on your phone. Add The Greenwich Wire as a preferred source on Google.
📩 Follow The Greenwich Wire on Bluesky, Facebook, LinkedIn or Threads. You can also sign up for WhatsApp alerts – or subscribe to our emails through the blue box above.
You must be logged in to post a comment.