End of Year Highlights: 2025
As the year comes to a close, we’re reflecting on a wonderful 2025 at The Royal Parks charity.
From exciting new projects to conservation awards, community initiatives and spectacular events, there’s so much to celebrate from across the parks. Here's a look at some of our key highlights:
Nurturing Nature
Our biodiversity and Help Nature Thrive teams have been hard at work building the resilience of London’s most treasured wildlife habitats.
Thanks to players of People’s Postcode Lottery and our amazing volunteers, we’ve enhanced 20 acres of wildflower meadows and planted over 200,000 plant species. We’ve also planted almost 10,000 saplings and trees, to increase carbon storage and provide vital habitats for the future.
We've engaged more than 13,000 people with free events and opportunities at our community sessions, art workshops and guided walks. These sessions have introduced people to nature, highlighted underappreciated species, and celebrated the wildlife and habitats of London's Royal Parks.
The Royal Parks charity also won a celebrated ecology award from the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management (CIEEM), for research on the relationship between plant diversity and soil health.
New Garden in The Regent's Park
In The Regent’s Park, work has continued on the new garden commemorating the life of Queen Elizabeth II. This tranquil space, set to open in spring 2026, will add two acres of biodiverse parkland for everyone to enjoy and explore.
It will feature a circular pond to support wildlife, a vibrant flower garden with plants significant to the late Queen, and a viewing platform with panoramic views of the garden and its surroundings.
From design to planting the first trees, it has been a busy year in the new garden. This November we welcomed the public to our free planting day, where a variety of spring bulbs were planted to add a joyous pop of colour, as well as providing nectar and pollen for vital pollinating insects.
Royal Parks Half Marathon
We had another record-breaking year at the Royal Parks Half Marathon. An extraordinary £8.5 million was raised for 550 charities.
Runners undertook a bold new route including even more historic landmarks and an iconic finish line between the Albert Memorial and the Royal Albert Hall.
We do everything we can to help reduce the impact of the Royal Parks Half Marathon on the environment, including making all our race communications digital, continuing our tradition of wooden medals and using compostable cups at our water stations to avoid the need for single-use plastics.
This hugely successful event continues to support our work protecting and sustainably managing the parks for everyone to enjoy.
Engaging Through Learning
Our Learning programme has continued to provide inspiring outdoor education experiences throughout the year, welcoming over 9,000 pupils to the central parks.
We extended our Green Futures project to 2028, thanks to funding from the Mohn Westlake Foundation. This will enable thousands more teenagers to undertake practical conservation and surveying work across the seasons in Hyde Park.
We also welcomed over 10,000 visitors to our guided walking tours, activity days and workshops this year, including our free Discovery Days where over 5,600 families joined us this year.
Unforgettable Events
2025 has been full of treasured moments at events across the Royal Parks. Whether you joined us to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of VE Day in May, celebrated the King's birthday at The Trooping the Colour or got involved in the Lionesses victory parade following their European Championship win, thank you for being a part of our year.
This year’s BST Hyde Park was also our biggest yet, welcoming nearly 500,000 fans for eight sell out shows. Fans were treated to three weekends of legendary music from Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, Zach Bryan, Noah Kahan, Neil Young and Stevie Wonder.
Winter Wonderland, the ultimate destination for festive fun, returned to Hyde Park this winter and is currently in full swing. This year features an all-new Santa’s Grotto, as well as all the traditional favourites.
Celebrating Volunteers
In 2025 our wonderful volunteers contributed over 60,000 hours across 95 opportunities. At the Hyde Park Plant Nursery alone volunteers contributed 9,700 hours to ensure plants were grown for use across the Royal Parks.
Volunteers have been hard at work improving the Community Wildlife Garden in The Regent's Park, including weaving willow structures, making dead hedge habitat and planting new pollinator-friendly 'wild' herbaceous borders.
The Bio Garden in Bushy Park, a new project for 2025, has also seen a dedicated group of volunteers who have created a space for growing food and flowers, as well as encouraging wildlife, with a heavy focus on sustainability. This has been achieved by recycling materials from across the parks to build and maintain the garden.
Places for Play
This year our Play in the Park project engaged with over 2,000 visitors across Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, The Regent's Park and Greenwich Park. Families joined us throughout the year for a range of nature themed play events across the parks.
In August, we celebrated 25 years of the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground, located in Kensington Gardens. Thousands of children and their carers joined us to celebrate the quarter of a century since the playground opened and hear all about the plans for its upcoming renewal.
If you'd like to help renew the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Playground then please consider donating. Your donation will help renew the playground and make it an accessible and nature-rich haven for all children.
Bringing The Parks to Life
This year saw the installation of over 600 new signs across Greenwich Park as well as new maps, refurbished noticeboards, over 20 new pieces of online content and the launch of our Greenwich Park app.
We've installed new maps and welcome messages in Richmond Park, Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. As we head into 2026 there will be continued development of signage across Kensington Gardens so keep your eyes peeled!
Thank You for an Incredible 2025
As we look ahead to 2026, we are deeply grateful to everyone who has supported The Royal Parks this year - our visitors, volunteers, and partners. Together, we’re making a lasting impact on these vital green spaces, ensuring they can be enjoyed for generations to come.
From everyone at The Royal Parks we wish you a fantastic 2026 and we can't wait to welcome you to the parks in the new year!
As a charity, we rely on kind people like you, who care about protecting these vital green spaces. The parks are home to much of the city’s wildlife, home to London’s amazing history and home to precious memories and moments. It’s only with your support that we can continue to care for them.
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