Enhance biodiversity and protect our natural environment

We want to ensure that parks, nature reserves and green spaces can be enjoyed by both people and wildlife. Improving levels of ‘biodiversity’ is critical for supporting us to live healthy lives.

Biodiversity refers to the number and variety of different organisms, animals, insects, and plants that exist in an area.

Plants can provide shade for cooling, some organisms and plants help to improve water quality, others can help reduce the impact of flooding events.

Green spaces and rivers also provide us with spaces to have fun. These spaces are good for our wellbeing so we must protect them.

Some of the actions we are taking to protect the environment and support wildlife:

• Create new habitats at the Cymbeline Meadows local wildlife site. Tree planting and the creation of wildflower meadows are set to take place on the site. This will convert farmland that is currently on the site to habitats that can better support wildlife. 
• Deliver a river restoration project at Cymbeline Meadows to reduce riverbank erosion and improve water quality. Solar powered drinking troughs have been installed to enable cows to drink water from, rather than drinking from the river. Coir rolls have been installed to reduce riverbank erosion, for example during periods of high rainfall. 
• Offering free trees and shrubs to residents, community groups and schools as part of the ‘Trees for Years’ campaign.
• Reducing the mowing of our green spaces, to help rewild areas and encourage the growth of grasses and wildflowers which can support insects and pollinators.
• Deliver improvements at the Ferry Marsh Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) that benefit local wildlife as well as manage access for the public to enjoy the site.
• Managing our green spaces for the benefit of biodiversity, including using only peat free compost on our green spaces and not using glyphosate herbicides. We have also started producing wood chippings from our green waste to use as mulch in the parks.