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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Environment
Patrick Barkham

‘Brownfields can be rich habitats’: the abandoned oil refinery where wildlife now thrives

Oil RSPB Essex Buglife Natural England
Two men walk from concrete on to grass.
Patrick Barkham meets the site manager of the Canvey Wick nature reserve, Marc Outten. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

“You must see this!” Marc Outten shoulders past tangles of blackthorn and shimmies around hummocks of blackberries the size of buses and glades filled with wildflowers. What beautiful wildlife spectacle awaits?

Weaving across carpets of bird’s foot trefoil, we reach our destination: a vast, barren circle of asphalt, 70 metres across – the ruins of an uncompleted oil refinery.

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