ISPAL likes to acknowledge innovative and exciting new ideas, or developments, and therefore we feature this week the Kew Gardens’ announcement that the London Eye architects are to build a spiral walkway to take visitors 60ft aloft into the tree canopy of the Royal Botanic Gardens.

The 656ft walkway (costing £3m) will snake through the treetops of chestnuts planted by Lancelot "Capability" Brown, the landscape gardener, in the 18th century.

The English oaks, chestnuts and walnuts harbour colonies of insects, woodpeckers, tawny owls and bats.

Visitors will be taught how trees play host to hundreds of species of animals and insects and how their leaves are vital in the fight against climate change.

Kew is adopting techniques used by the Eden Project in Cornwall, which combines a theme park experience with botanical lessons.

Construction starts in June and the walkway is expected to open in May 2008. This innovation should help Kew’s campaign to boost visitor numbers up and away from the current level of 1.9million a year.

“We want people to walk away with the awesome feeling of going on a rollercoaster,” said spokesperson Jill Kowal. “But this isn’t about making Kew into a theme park. It is our attempt to bring people closer to the wonders of the trees in a very subtle way.”