Rewilding

Roadside Verges Statement

By adopting a “no mow” approach to roadside verges we could achieve the following:

Benefits to plants:

  • If management guidelines were followed on all UK roadside verges, there would be an additional 400 billion wildflowers in the country. This has a knock-on benefit for commuters – for many people the roadside verges they pass on their way to work are their main exposure to wildlife during the day.

CO2 emissions:

  • Only mowing once annually is going to significantly reduce CO2 emissions produced. This will free up resources for work on managing habitats in the district to provide benefits for biodiversity.

  • Plantlife has estimated that if cutting all road verges in Britain was reduced from four times a year to twice a year, it would save over 30,000 tons of CO2 emissions.

Benefits to insects and other wildlife:

  • Roadside verges are critical in providing corridors of connective habitat for insects across the country. Nectar-producing flowers provide foraging opportunities while mowing the grass to varied heights will provide sheltering habitat.

  • Huntingdon falls within one of Buglife’s B-Lines, a series of ‘insect pathways’ running through the UK, which have been identified as priority areas for restoring and creating a series of wildflower-rich habitat stepping stones.

Increasing the number of insects our roadside verges support in turn provides additional foraging opportunities for bats and birds who feed on insects. Creating green corridors through towns also provides commuting routes for bats and reptile species to move through the landscape. Visit Bug Life's website.

Biodiversity unit gain

DEFRA’s Biodiversity Net Gain calculator shows that enhancing 100m2 of neutral grassland from poor condition (a heavily mown verge with few wildflowers and no diversity in sward height) to moderate condition (a roadside verge mown once or twice a year with a range of wildflowers and a diverse sward height) increases the biodiversity value by 70%.

Laying off the lawnmower leads to increased biodiversity   Biodiversity refers to the variety of living organisms in a specific area. Routine mowing removes habitats and vastly reduces biodiversity. Only shorter plants survive, which has a knock-on effect on the biodiversity of organisms such as pollinators and herbivores. Less frequent or intensive mowing will enable bees, butterflies and other such wildlife to take up residence in your garden.  Developing and protecting biodiversity is important for many reasons.

Research as part of the Plantlife campaign found that simple changes in mowing can result in enough nectar for ten times more bees and other pollinators and their study discovered that over 200 species were found flowering on lawns.  More than 80% of the public supported the idea of councils cutting grass areas less frequently to protect the nation’s bees, according to a survey by Friends of the Earth and Buglife. 

Amenity Grass Statement

HDC manages and maintains just over 256 hectares (2.56 million m2) of grassland, with 52% of that grassland being what is known as amenity grass – grass that is intensively maintained and closely mown every 2-3 weeks between March and October. In terms of biodiversity, this grassland is currently classed as Poor.

We will:

  • rewild 25% of these areas by allowing grass to grow to meadow grass and cutting and collecting once a year

  • increase the amount of flower meadows we sow by 25% over the next four years (currently 1.4 hectares)

  • increase the tree canopy by adopting and implementing a four-year tree planting programme (approximately 10,000 trees).

This will improve the quality of the grassland to Moderate, resulting in an 80% increase in biodiversity.

Why?

The decline in insects and birds across the UK has been well documented. Pollinators are suffering due to a decline in habitat. Bird species are declining through a reduction in nesting areas and their food sources of seeds and insects.

Providing more tree canopy coverage across the region will help offset our carbon footprint. Trees provide a habitat for a wild range of wildlife providing both food and shelter.

Introducing areas of tall grass and flower meadow will provide several benefits for insects, birds and mammals such as shelter and a place to hunt, feed and breed.

Reducing the time spent cutting grass will also reduce our carbon footprint.

To maximise these biodiversity benefits we are rewilding parts of our parks and open spaces and roadside verges where we cut the grass regularly.

This regular mowing means these sites have the least variety of wildlife (biodiversity) so rewilding them will make a significant change to this enabling more plants, insects, birds and mammals to flourish. Leaving the grass to grow tall enables both grasses and wildflowers in the sward to reach their potential by enabling flowering and seeding. It is important to note that tall grass species are just as important for wildlife as wildflowers.

Pilots of wildflower planting across the district have already proven successful and popular with the public.

Biodiversity for All