Benjamin Murphy

On 24th July 2024, I had noticed that the government’s Rural England Prosperity Fund was advertising capital grants of up to £50,000 for local arts, cultural, heritage and creative activities, especially those which delivered improvements to local rural green spaces.…

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As regular readers will know, over the past few years we have tried to share regular updates relating to the complex web of maintenance and improvements required at Wanstead Park in Epping Forest. As we have slowly rebuilt our Officer…

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Each year, the Lord Mayor of the City of London is invited to visit Burnham Beeches in Buckinghamshire (covered in 2024 here, 2023 here and 2022 here). It is an annual tradition for the Lord Mayor to inspect the condition…

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As regular readers will be aware, over the past couple of years Epping Forest’s operating structure has been undergoing a pretty radical transformation, including a staff restructure to attract new talent, retain existing talent and add resilience to the growing…

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Jacqueline Eggleston joined Epping Forest in March 2015 as Head of Visitor Services and was promoted to Head of Business Development in 2023. In December 2023, she was promoted to Superintendent (Assistant Director of the Environment Department at the City…

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Fifteen of London and southeast England’s most cherished green spaces have once again been awarded Green Flag status – recognising them among the very best managed parks and open spaces in the world. With millions of visitors expected this summer,…

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This morning, the Epping Forest and Commons Committee conducted one of their regular site visits, which helps both keep new Members of the Committee informed of work on the ground and helps to provide informal advice to staff about approaches…

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This weekend, Members of the Epping Forest and Commons Committee headed to north-east Surrey for a site visit to Ashtead Common. The 450 acre Common is designated as National Nature Reserve – home to over 1,000 ancient oak pollards and…

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I have said many times before that people are the City of London’s greatest asset. At Epping Forest, volunteers form a critical part of our people strategy – we simply couldn’t run our open spaces charities without the hard work…

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In September last year, I provided an update on the Wanstead Park projects in-flight, following a site visit from the Epping Forest and Commons Committee at the City of London Corporation. This week, we were pleased to extend these sessions…

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