DP World London Gateway environment manager Rachael
Jones said: “The completion of this important project has been a great effort by all those involved. We’re delighted that members of the public have been able to help us in naming the new site.

“It was a very close vote between Salt Fleet Flats and Willow Wick Reserve, but we are really pleased with the name Salt Fleet Flats, which refers to the name of an existing water body next to the site.”

Experts worked to develop a special seed mix to be sewn along the sea wall and it’s hoped this will attract rare bees and other invertebrates, adding to the area’s wildlife diversity.

Many members of the local community around DP World voted for the site’s name. Steve Bewers, Project Manager at the Environment Agency, said: More habitat than was required has been created by DP World, to compensate for losses that were predicted to arise through the creation of the Port.”

Wading birds, fish species and many more varieties of wildlife now have pastures new on the tidal Thames – after an area the size of more than 80 football pitches was created.

DP World London Gateway recently announced that 65 hectares of habitat, called Salt Fleet Flats Reserve, near Cooling in Kent, would provide ample feeding ground. Plans for the reserve were drawn up as part of conditions for the building of London Gateway, the Thames’ newest deep-sea terminal, to compensate for habitat that was lost during its construction.

DP World has added 12 hectares to the amount it was required to create. It is the second reserve that the port operator has unveiled, after Stanford Wharf Nature Reserve, a 27-hectare site opened in 2010. That site is managed in partnership with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. Salt Fleet Flats Reserve was created by building a new 2.4km-long sea wall, inland of the existing one. It is thought to be the biggest-ever breach of a sea wall in the UK.