A PETITION to save an urban meadow that blossomed during an extended legal battle to prevent it becoming a football training ground has gained more than 10,000 signatures.

Campaigners are now urging Ealing Council, the landowner, to designate Warren Farm Nature Reserve as a Local Nature Reserve.

During 10 years of legal wrangling with Queens Park Rangers football club and Ealing Council, nature enthusiasts watched the almost undeveloped 61-acre space grow into a wildflower meadow.

QPR eventually found a new site for a training ground and withdrew their planning application.

However, Ealing Council has still expressed an interest in using the land for sports, which would involve mowing part of the reserve.

Campaign organiser and Brent River & Canal Society trustee, Katie Boyles, said she was 'delighted' about the number of signatures the campaign to save the reserve had gathered in less than six months.

"You don't get any places like this in London, COVID has taught us how much our green spaces mean to the health and happiness of our community and wildlife.

"We are saying, if we're to develop the land in any way and mow it down to an inch of its life, or cover it with landfill to make it more suitable for sports usage, you would destroy it and lose some really rare species.

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"The biodiversity loss would be catastrophic.

"Don't do that – our position is that our rewilded meadow must be left to nature."

Ms Boyles said the meadow and neighbouring woodland are now home to many different bird species, including endangered Skylarks which nest on the ground.

Among the species of plant, there are three 'very rare' and two 'near threatened' species.

A Trifolium, a rare clover, has been identified by specialists at Kew Gardens.

Animals living in the area include barn owls, mistle thrushes, linnets, starlings, peregrine falcons, kestrels, swans and bats.

Ms Boyles was also positive about recent meetings with Ealing Council leader, Peter Mason.

"He did contact us and invite us out for a walk.

"It was constructive and he did give us his time," she said.

"He is in a position now where he could do something really incredible and set a precedent that other councils could follow."

The campaign is asking for support from Ealing Council and the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to impose a statutory Local Nature Reserve (LNR) designation on the site.

LNR designation on the reserve and surrounding fields would give the council greater legal powers, campaigners say.