ZSL London Zoo ZSL London Zoo News 2024

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There was a backlash from local people who didn't want to pay to visit the 10 acres of London Zoo has an option to buy. The zoo also had financial problems at the time
 
Dassie rat said:
There was a backlash from local people who didn't want to pay to visit the 10 acres of London Zoo has an option to buy. The zoo also had financial problems at the time
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I’m not surprised there was backlash. Public interest should take the priority, and people use every inch of the park. Meanwhile London Zoo has plenty of unused space (the canal…)

Which area was the zoo given the option to buy (presumably lease)? I can’t think of any area in the park which isn’t regularly used by the public and/or which wouldn’t be hugely expensive to link up to the zoo’s current site?
 
Cat-Man said:
Would you mind expanding on when the subject was last raised and why they decided not to pursue
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Dassie rat said:
There was a backlash from local people who didn't want to pay to visit the 10 acres of London Zoo has an option to buy. The zoo also had financial problems at the time
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As "Dassie rat" has already responded, there was a lot of opposition from local residents who didn't want to lose part of "their" park and there was a concern that this would generate bad publicity for the zoo. Moreover this was shortly after the zoo's closure crisis and the ZSL didn't have the finance to develop the extra land.

NB I believe the extra land actually occupied fifteen, not ten, acres and the ZSL would have leased not bought it.
 
I don't expect them to ever get an extension, but London Zoo is an absolutely excellent facility as it is, and with the closure of the old Reptile House, former Aquarium and the former "Gorilla House", empty space in the current Gorilla Kingdom, and plenty they can do with the canal space already, including by the Snowdon Aviary space, and the potential to alter the Mappin Terraces, there is no shortage of work to be done at the current site, honestly.
 
I see the problem rather differently. It would cost far too much to modernise the Mappins, even if English Heritage approved the scheme and I regret that demolishing the Casson is not really an option. But provided some money is available there should be no real difficulty in converting the old Reptile House into an interesting exhibit, perhaps with one or two creatures on show among the museum items (put the raven's cage there perhaps).
However the real space available is on the North Bank, which was a works yard while the Snowdon was redeveloped and had been more or less derelict for some years previously. There is not a lot of level gound, but it faces south so there are many possibilities for exhibits for smaller creatures where the old aviaries used to be, perhaps with one or two arboreal species where the ground slopes away - imagine viewing spider monkeys or clouded leopards at tree top level. But the rule must be modest structures only: no grand designs which might get listed in the future.
 
I think they’ve got more than enough on their plates without getting extra land from the park, which will never happen anyway!
They’ve made good, steady progress over the last couple of decades with their redevelopment, maybe not as fast as the zoo fantasists would like, but it comes down to priorities and money!
ZSL have recorded some pretty impressive cash surpluses recently, I think they made £8.7m a couple of years ago, but this is the exception, it’ll be interesting to see how much they made in 23/24, with the cost of living!
They’ve got an awful lot more to do in London along with Whipsnade, it’ll be interesting to see what they do next, will it be an aquarium at London, a reptile house in the old discovery centre at Whipsnade, the North Bank, 3 Island Pond, Mappins, Casson or Round House?
I’d like to see a new aquarium in the old reptile house and new aviaries on the North Bank!!
 
There are restrictions going back decades on amount of land that the ministry could include in leases for the zoo. Eg

all or any of the land occupied by the Society in Regent’s Park at the beginning of the year nineteen hundred and sixty-one, or of neighbouring land in Regent’s Park up to a total (exclusive of the land so occupied) of ten acres.
 
aquilla1 said:
They’ve got an awful lot more to do in London along with Whipsnade, it’ll be interesting to see what they do next, will it be an aquarium at London, a reptile house in the old discovery centre at Whipsnade, the North Bank, 3 Island Pond, Mappins, Casson or Round House?
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Can't find the link to it now, but in 2021/2 there were plans released that included this as the third and final phase of the Cloisters redevelopment, which also brought about the Aquarium and Butterfly House. The fact that monitor lizards among other reptiles feature on the fencing used to section off areas of the zoo under development in recent times (such as the sea lion house whilst it was being demolished) may also hint at this being a plan, although I don't believe any work has started yet.

Over the past five years, we have got the following new developments, despite cost restrictions due to the lockdown:

- 2019: Aquarium at Whipsnade
- 2019: renovated Animal Adventure at London
- 2021: Giants of the Galapagos at London
- 2022: Monkey Valley at London
- 2023: Langur and Babirusa enclosure at Whipsnade
- 2024: Monkey Forest at Whipsnade
- 2024: SLoRA at London

And that is excluding smaller projects such as the renovations to the bear enclosure and arrival of porcupines and aardvarks at Whipsnade.

With this rate of development, chances are both London and Whipsnade will receive a new exhibit over the next two years, even if it is more akin to, say, Giants of the Galapagos than SLoRA or Monkey Forest in scale.

However, unfortunately (and I would love to be proven wrong here), I think a renovated Mappin Terraces is out of the question, with the Historic England listings and the sheer cost of repairing failing infrastructure on such a large scale. From a practical point of view, a much better option will be demolishing it entirely, but from a historical point of view it is far too significant and admired by the public to make this appropriate. I would personally like to see sun bears replace the wallabies and emus in the paddocks in front, but leave the Mappins themselves unchanged.

For the foreseeable future, I think these are the areas in which we can realistically expect to see something at London Zoo:

- Former Reptile House
- Former Giant Tortoise Enclosure
- Interior of the Cassons (the exterior should remain untouched - unattractive, but listed and significant for being one of the few post-war brutalist structures in British zoos on that scale)
- Paddocks in front of the Mappins
- Lawns around SLoRA
- North Bank of Regent's Canal
- South Bank of Regent's Canal (the Woodland Walk is lovely, but a bit redundant given that the zoo is surrounded by parkland)
- Tecton Roundhouse
- Former Giant Anteater and Vicuna enclosures opposite Tiny Giants
- Education Centre and surrounding lawns behind Monkey Valley

I don't want to get too much into speculation, as this is a news thread, but personally, I would love to see the Reptile House, Giant Tortoise enclosure, interior of the Cassons and front of the Mappins all given to Southeast Asian species, so that they can combine with the Babirusa, Tiger Territory and the Attenborough Komodo Dragon House (which now features Mindanao Water Monitors) to create a Southeast Asian zone of sorts.

You have to be patient with ZSL, and respectful of the astonishing progress that they have already made over the past few years. To do this on a tight budget while still giving more to in-situ conservation than any other zoo in Europe is truly very impressive. However, I do think that London Zoo could easily be significantly better than it is at the moment, and I also believe that, with the rate ZSL are going in at the moment, it will fulfil this potential in the coming years.

London Zoo has been in a state of decline over the previous decade, and even now that it is in a state of incline, remnants (i.e. empty and underused spaces) from said collapse are still very much present, and ZSL needs to look to change this. All things considered, I think the Society has given us reasons to be positive and optimistic in recent years, and as such, I very much look forward to the announcement and commencement of whatever future plans they have. For me, it is as good a time as it has ever been in the 21st Century so far to call London Zoo your local!
 
Listed buildings can be demolished, though permission requires jumping through numerous hoops to put it mildly!

Realistically though could the Mappin ever be converted into something useful? And the elephant/rhino monstrosity was never a practical building. (Was it Durrell who described architects as the most dangerous animals in a zoo?)

The ZSL should be trying very, very hard to get both delisted with a view to demolition and redevelopmnent.
 
SHAVINGTONZOO said:
Listed buildings can be demolished, though permission requires jumping through numerous hoops to put it mildly!

Realistically though could the Mappin ever be converted into something useful? And the elephant/rhino monstrosity was never a practical building. (Was it Durrell who described architects as the most dangerous animals in a zoo?)

The ZSL should be trying very, very hard to get both delisted with a view to demolition and redevelopmnent.
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I think that you are right about Durrell's description of architects.My concerns about demolishing the Mappins,would be the enormous cost and then how long it would take to put something worthwhile in its place
 
"we can devote time to tackling some of the jobs that are difficult or unsafe to do with visitors around."

Is how it is phrased I the email.
 
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