Council works in partnership to help pollinators

Lancaster City Council is working with local volunteers to create wildflower corridors across the district to benefit bees and other pollinating insects.

The city council has for a number of years been working with Community Pollinator Patches, a volunteer group which encourages native wild flowers to thrive through good grassland management.  The council has also been grateful to the Lancashire Wildlife Trust for advice on some of its sites.
 
The aim has been to encourage a wide variety of native wild flowers and grasses to attract insects, bees and butterflies to sites through better grassland management.  Some sites have also been planted with native mixes to create pollinator habitat.
 
The scheme has seen the creation of wildflower areas on Quernmore Road outside Williamson Park and improved grass verge management on Wyresdale Road, along with sites in Carnforth.
 
The scheme is benefiting  wildlife, protecting important local native seed banks and helping to reduce maintenance costs due to a reduction in grass-cutting.
 
Coun Dave Brookes, Cabinet member with responsibility for environmental services, said: “Pollinators such as bees and butterflies are a vital part of our ecosystem and are responsible for pollinating the crops that provide the food we eat.  Worryingly they are in decline and initiatives like this are an important way of increasing biodiversity both in urban and rural areas, with the very welcome side effect that they are lovely to look at.”
 
The city council is also committed to making further improvements to increase biodiversity and will be shortly conducting a grassland management strategy to identify more areas for native wild flowers to thrive.

Last updated: 26 June 2019