Judi Dench backs campaign to protect London’s green spaces from developers

Dame Judi Dench holds a seedling from the Sycamore Gap tree. The actor has spoken out about protecting London’s public land from private use ‘before it’s too late’. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP

Dame Judi Dench has called for greater protections for London’s parks and green spaces, as research finds more than 50 of the city’s parks are at risk from development.

The Oscar-winning actor has long loved trees, and in 2017 fronted a BBC documentary about her love for them. She plants a tree every time a close friend or relative dies, including for her late husband, Michael Williams, who died in 2001, and the actor Natasha Richardson, who was killed in a skiing accident in 2009, and one for her brother Jeffery Dench, who died in 2014.