Our Wild Spaces Project Officers kicked of the Glasgow and Leeds Wild Spaces projects this year, you can find out about all their latest achievements below.
Glasgow Wild Spaces
Work on our Glasgow Wild Space project is gathering pace, with lots of exciting work on the horizon. Our Project Officer, Claire Martin, has been busy visiting parks and greenspaces across the city where habitats for butterflies and moths will be created in partnership with Glasgow City Council and local communities. Claire has met with staff from lots of different council departments to discuss the planned Wild Spaces creations, including biodiversity officers, parks community staff, countryside rangers and landscape architects, and it has been heartening to see how enthusiastic staff are to support the project!
Our work with schools begins soon, an exciting opportunity to engage a new generation in the wonderful world of butterflies and moths! Over the 2-year project, 13 schools across Glasgow will benefit from a series of workshops about butterflies and moths, their habitats and lifecycles. Pupils and staff will then have the chance to design and create Wild Spaces in their school grounds, creating habitats for local wildlife and providing an outdoor learning opportunity for years to come.
Work with communities is also a key part of the Glasgow Wild Spaces project, and following our launch event we’ve been delighted to receive lots of contact from groups keen to take part, including SAMH (Scottish Action for Mental Health), a gardening group based in a housing estate in an area of multiple deprivation, Sense Scotland (a charity supporting adults with complex needs), and a bowling club whose members are keen to transform some of their outdoor space into a wildlife garden.
Watch this space for more information about public events and workshops coming soon!
Leeds Wild Spaces
The Leeds Wild Spaces Project is well underway, with groundwork and meadow creation nearly complete. Since the project restarted in March, we’ve met with community groups, partners and the city council to agree all the plans and recently we began turf stripping, rotavating, seeding and plug planting. Between our seven sites we’re creating and enhancing just over 2.2 hectares of meadow!
We have received some fantastic media attention too, with BBC Radio Leeds and ITV Calendar covering our recent weekend plug planting event. The project is soon moving into full engagement mode as we’ll be working with friends of parks groups, schools, communities, and the council to run a series of events including training and citizen science surveys. It’s going to be a great summer for Butterflies and Moths here in Leeds!
