5 June, 2026

Greenford, London, isn’t the place you’d expect to make wildlife history. But thanks to the hard work of over 100 volunteers from the local area, Ealing is home to London’s first fully accessible urban beaver site. And this year, the first kits (baby beavers) born in the capital in over 400 years arrived on site.

The area around Greenford station has long been prone to flooding, with heavy rainfall regularly overwhelming the storm water system. The council had already earmarked the site for expensive engineering works, until the project proposed a cheaper, natural alternative: beavers.

Beavers are what ecologists call ecosystem engineers. Their dams slow water flow, raise water tables, and create wetland habitats that act as natural sponges during heavy rainfall events. The pools they create also improve water quality and kickstart aquatic food chains, producing rapid biodiversity gains across insects, birds and amphibians.

Within months of the arrival of beavers in Ealing, they had built five dams, slowing the flow of water through the site and reducing flooding downstream. They get the name busy beavers for a reason!

As wild beaver populations in Kent and Oxfordshire move closer to London, the project is also doing important work in preparing communities to live alongside the species once again. The data being gathered here on flood mitigation, biodiversity recovery, and public coexistence will hopefully become a blueprint for urban rewilding well beyond west London.

By Budd Nicholson