Friends of Bushy and Home Park

Annual Report for 2025/26

I am pleased to be able to offer my tenth annual report to Members. Dealing on your behalf with The Royal Parks (TRP), with Historic Royal Palaces (HRP) is a tremendous privilege and mostly an enjoyable experience. On your behalf, I try to represent our appreciation of these two parks. They are wonderful spaces providing us with nature, history, and our well-being. The Friends exist to promote respectful use of the parks by visitors and to support the parks for future generations to enjoy.

2025 has been a year of contrasting experiences for the Friends. On the one hand, successes, while on the other hand, frustrations preventing success. I will first address the events which have been less than successful.

A significant issue for TRP has been the disbanding of the police unit dedicated to the parks. Despite campaigns to stop this happening it was implemented by the Metropolitan Police towards the end of 2025. The campaigns all failed to stop this happening. We must acknowledge that large parks are generally crime and trouble free, compared to other parts of London. The changed arrangements in the parks mean that local neighbourhood police units cover the parks. The park manager now deals regularly with two supervising Inspectors and local neighbourhood police teams in Teddington, Hampton Wick, Hampton and Hampton Hill. Perhaps surprisingly, this arrangement is producing a visible police presence in the park. That is because large police vans are being kept parked near the office at White Lodge and are easily seen from the nearby main road, and the Colicci-run café and kiosks are providing places for police officers needing refreshment. We are following the new arrangements with close interest and resurgent hope.

A second underwhelming issue for the Friends’ managing team relates to the electric buggy service. As members will be aware, we have been campaigning for several years to have a passenger buggy in Bushy Park to serve those visitors with mobility difficulties who need to move between Diana car park and the Pheasantry. TRP eventually agreed in late 2024 to purchase a buggy. It was delivered in the summer of 2025. The Friends were asked to arrange the insurance cover for the vehicle. This proved surprisingly difficult, and after months of rejection by insurers, one was found who required the buggy to be regarded as an agricultural vehicle and part of a fleet comprising one vehicle. We began a low-key introductory service in late 2025. However, in week two of the service the brand-new buggy developed a fault caused by travelling over the cattle grids and became unserviceable. It took some time for the repair as the manufacturer (in Türkiye) had to investigate under the warranty before authorising the replacement parts. By early 2026 the buggy was ready for use, and we have changed the route to avoid cattle grids. Bad weather prevented us from resuming a service until the early Spring. Our fingers are crossed in the hope that the service will prove a success in the coming year.

Also frustrating, not just for the Friends but for TRP’s team and for Colicci, has been the leaking roof of the Pheasantry café, which has meant areas beneath being fenced off to visitors. The delay to repairing has been because it has had to take a place in a queue of projects on buildings across all Royal Parks. At last, the repairs are soon to start. The long wait for the toilets upgrade at the children’s playground has also ended and appears to be successful.

Moving on to the positive aspects of the Friends’ activities.

We purchased four new wooden notice boards and commissioned seasonal informative posters for each location. The illustrations on the posters are by one of our members, the artist Sue Ribbans. The posters have attracted welcome comments and appear to be teaching visitors things they did not know. These notice boards and posters are provided by the Friends and are not part of TRP’s signage programme which you will see being implemented across Bushy Park in the coming year. That programme aims to provide not just interpretation and education for visitors but will also include directional information to address safety concerns, such as the time from a point to a gate, helping anyone feeling vulnerable and wishing to leave by the shortest route.

As I reported last year, TRP agreed to allow the Brewhouse at Hampton Hill become a location around which occasional pop-up exhibitions and small events can be organised. While we have not yet been able to prepare detailed plans and dates for events, this is something we hope to implement during the year ahead.

Chestnut Sunday was funded and organised by TRP in May 2025. It was very successful attracting several thousands of visitors. In future, because of the costs in providing a free event, it has been decided by TRP to make it a biennial event. So, the next one will be 2027. That doesn’t preclude any members and visitors from coming along on the second Sunday in May in the alternate years to have a celebratory picnic.

We assisted planting for the new deer refuge enclosure at the Warren Plantation in Bushy Park. A significant donation from her family commemorating the life and work of Kathy White was matched by the Friends to support this planting. Kathy was a former chair and founder of the Friends and was the leading light for the restoration of the Water Gardens.

We contributed a significant donation to Bushy Park for 75 Witch Hazels to be planted in the Woodland Gardens. In addition, TRP have planted 15 climate-resistant oak trees in the gardens, and you may also have seen the bog garden trail being developed in the Waterhouse Plantation.

A legacy left to the Friends by Moya Lamble, a long-time member who lived in Teddington, is being used by us to replace and restore the Eisenhower Camp Griffiss plaque and the USAAF memorial plaque, both of which have suffered damage and deterioration. The work on these two sites will be undertaken in coming months.

A new booklet about Camp Griffiss and Bushy Park in World War II was produced by David and Clare Ivison and is now available at the Visitor Centre.

In Home Park we have continued to work closely with the team there. Our substantial donation to commemorate the life and work of Terry Gough, the late Head of Estates for HRP will be used to plant a new hedge leading into the park from one of the riverside entrances known as Surbiton Passage. This will provide important habitat for wildlife, especially pollinators, and will be very long-lasting.

Our introductory and bat walks in Home Park have proved very popular. In fact, our whole walks and talks programme has continued to be very successful. In 2025 about 1,000 people attended walks with around 140 hours of volunteering to lead the walks.  In 2026 thirty events are planned – 6 talks, 13 walks and 11 introductory walks. Massive thanks to volunteer walk leaders, expert speakers, and volunteers who support the talks with technical expertise, logistics and catering, and especially to Rebecca Harvey who manages the programme.

We opened the Visitor Centre on Fridays in addition to weekends, and also throughout the weeks of school holidays. Many visitors who do not come at weekends were pleased to be able to enter the Visitor Centre on these extra days. Our exceptional volunteers delivered around 1700 hours duty. I want to record thanks here to Sue Robertson, who manages the Visitor Centre and our exhibits and merchandise, and to Elizabeth Malone who organises the rota for volunteers to operate the Centre, the buggy service and the events support

Our membership stands currently around the 1560 mark. Susan Hugill, our Membership secretary keeps you all in touch and does an exceptional job for us all. Once again, I thank members for your generous donations to the Friends, which we use to fund projects that the two parks might not otherwise afford or be able to prioritise.

We continue to provide our Newsletter, website, and Facebook page to inform and update members, visitors and the local community. These channels of communication are maintained by volunteers Jeannie Edwards, David Meanwell and Rosemary MacColl and I thank them for their sterling work.

Trustees and other officers of FBHP have worked hard on behalf of the membership and in support of both parks. At last year’s AGM we did not have a candidate for the vacated Vice Chair role, following Barry Purdon’s retirement. However, I am delighted to report that David Ivison stepped up at a Trustee meeting to take on the role. He has been very busy taking forward several tasks that I was not able to undertake, for which I am hugely grateful.

These two parks face vulnerability to climate change and increased numbers of visitors. It is vital we look after them. The Rangers, volunteers and others are all doing our best to conserve the parks and help visitors enjoy them. Phil Edwards, the Bushy Park manager, and Nicholas Garbutt at HRP, together with their teams and colleagues, ensure caring and professional stewardship of these wonderful spaces. We are ever grateful to them.

I end with my thanks to fellow trustees, officers of the committee, volunteers, other helpers, and especially you the members for your continuing interest and support. The Friends must continue to ensure the protection and conservation of these parks for generations to enjoy.

Colin Muid          Chair, The Friends of Bushy and Home Parks.                                     February 2026.