PLANS to bring nature back to Staffordshire are being drawn up by the county council as part of national action to halt the decline in wildlife species.
The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world, a council report revealed, with 13% of species threatened with extinction.
Staffordshire County Council is now tasked with producing a legal document to set out measures to help nature recovery in the area – and the scrutiny committee was given an update on how the Local Nature Recovery Strategy was progressing.
Cllr Simon Tagg, cabinet member for environment, infrastructure and climate change, said:
“We know that our environment faces many challenges and species across the globe are threatened with extinction.
“As a council we have been given responsibility for the Local Nature Recovery Strategy that covers Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. That will require mapping out nature within the boundary so we can start to bring back nature.
“The county council is working with the city of Stoke-on-Trent, our district and borough councils, Peak District National Park, Natural England, the wildlife trust and many others.
“We’re also working with landowners and the farming community across the county who have a really important role to play in managing their land for environmental advantage for species and wildlife.”
Sarah Bentley, head of environment and countryside at the county council, said the strategy would not be dictating what landowners did with their land, but would identify places where they could make the biggest difference.
It would also link up with other areas covered by similar strategies – in total 48 are being drawn up across England.
The county council is aiming to complete the document this summer, with a public consultation on the proposals expected to place in May or June.
Cllr David Smith, Conservative member for Lichfield Rural South, highlighted the wildlife at his local quarry, including deer. He added:
“I’m interested in a project in my village which will plant over 100 trees.
“We have got to look at new ways of quarry management and quarry restoration. I have a concern about quarries and what we’re doing, because what we’ve currently approved isn’t going to work in 10 years’ time.”
Cllr Tagg said:
“We have got disused quarries that have spent their time supplying materials for our economy and construction and they’re an ideal place where we can bring nature back.
“I know your record of tree planting in your division and we’re trying to replicate that across the county – tree planting not only helps us to offset carbon emissions but also makes our environment much nicer for our residents and helps nature come back as well.”
Labour opposition group leader, Cllr Charlotte Atkins, said:
“I very much welcome the strategy and I’m interested in what we’re doing as a county council to bring nature back to those bits of land we own ourselves, such as grass verges.
“What are we doing to ensure that we don’t just cut everything down to a few inches – and do what they do in many places in England and France to mow a bit of the grass verge and then leave the rest longer?
“We have miles and miles of green verge and the last time I asked about it I was told it was cut six times a year.
“There’s also roundabouts – I think we could be doing more, it seems to me an easy win.”
Cllr Tagg responded:
“I agree with you on grass verges. I think the policies are changing and they’re looking to leave areas longer.
“We’ve got No Mow May that gathers momentum every year, but then we’ve got to be careful we keep the grass verges for highway safety.
“I think there is a compromise – as part of the strategy moving forward, anything we can do to help nature come back, through wildflowers or tree planting, is something we can include. I think highways are beginning to look at that and thinking of ways of changing cutting regimes to improve that.”
But committee chair Cllr Tina Clements said:
“When it comes to grass verges, we’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. They do look lovely when they’re done correctly and towards the back of the grass verge rather than the front.
“But when the wildflowers all die off it starts to look a bit rubbish and ends up being a tip because people chuck stuff out the window.
“I agree it’s a good idea and I agree we just need to be careful where we do put them. I feel sorry for our highways team when they go out there, things are done and then people moan – sometimes we can’t win.”
Makes me laugh just look at Cricket Lane they have ripped out hundreds of yards of hedges and then they’ll build 520 houses on a lovely field ? How on earth does this ever make sense is beyond me. Go build on brown field sites not green fields for goodness sake!!!
Local Guy,.. residents in this area have lived on a building site year after year. The construction under the railway, the Southern Bypass, the destruction of the Darwin Walk memorial trees plus countless others, metres and metres of beautiful ancient hedgerow torn up, the green nets draped over the hedges at Fosseway on the Birmingham Road hill, oversized,over-dense construction on every single green field in South Lichfield. Now the last green view, Cricket Lane, is being buried beneath 18 metre high warehousing, hundreds of houses, bordered by an enormous Care Home. Every single field gone, this fragmentation of nature will never recover. The only sounds now; constant vibrations of construction machinery,HS2 lorries, HGVs on the bypass, only stopping when snarled in stationary idling traffic! A beautiful City brought to it’s knees by unbridled urbanisation. Will nature return, why would it want to?
the irony isn’t lost on me
Life is all about priorities. There is pain for every gain. The semi rural city that was Lichfield is no more. Future generations will know no difference in their sterile existance. There is no going back as this rewilding pretence is suggesting. Wildlife on traffic islands just about sums it up. At least the corpses might fill some of the potholes!
Well that’s calling the kettle black, just look at how many hedgerows you’ve allowed to be ripped out by building contractors. Birmingham Rd and Cricket Lane developments to name just two !! It takes ages for new hedges to mature and wildlife to return. Hang your heads in shame 🤬
This article is an absolute joke. The amount of hedgerows and fields already lost to hideous housing and other buildings is shameful. You can’t discuss bringing nature back when as we discuss this more is being lost. When will someone from the county council do the right thing and protect our established hedgerows We are just entering into nesting season and nests are protected.