Mandy Rudd, GiGL Director

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In this our 10th edition of the GiGLer, we take a quick look at how things have changed over the five years of the GiGLer’s existence.

In the early summer of 2006, we had just launched as an open space and biodiversity records centre after our two-year development phase and had four staff. Five years on and we’re a fully fledged environmental records centre with seven members of staff: a director, project and data development manager, 2 data officers, records officer, data assistant and a Royal Parks officer.

Our partnership has increased from 19 organisations in 2006 to over 50 in 2011. We now include government agencies, local authorities and public and private sector bodies in our membership.

The increase in staff has brought significant improvements to the expertise and services we offer and to the range of data we manage. We have undertaken over 2,500 data searches during the past five years, and have achieved a 40% increase in the number of searches undertaken annually between 2006 and 2011.

The partnership has improved its data holdings by over one million species records and 8,500 habitat records. We’ve also created new datasets to reflect the wider audience for GiGL services, including London’s open space network, the non-statutory public open space hierarchy, and tree coverage.

The GiGL team has also been involved in some significant projects in London and further afield, many of which have been covered in the GiGLer.

From involvement in World Heritage Site bids, to demonstrating how environmental records centres can utilise the tools developed by the National Biodiversity Network. From helping to organise national conferences for the UK’s environmental records centre staff to setting up the professional body that now represents them. You can search the online archive of all previous articles from within this edition of the GiGLer, which also details our recent key achievements including the launch of the garden research project results, improvements to our data search service, implementation of the habitat suitability maps, creation of the All London Green Grid Evidence Partnership and the new greenspace related search facilities on our website.

We also include a whole new section of guidance to help you get the best out of our partnership’s data and related products and services.