Life in the Grass Lane

On April 30th Kent Wildlife Trust and Kent Thameside hosted "Life in the Grass Lane", a seminar examining opportunities for creating wildlife habitats in an unlikely urban setting; at the side of the road.

Sarah Taylor from Kent County Council and Paul Pearce from the Wildlife Trust started the day by looking at the legislation, policies and drivers which require planners and developers to create habitat for wildlife in the urban environment. Gill Tysoe from Kent Wildlife Trust followed, examining the success of the Trust's existing roadside nature reserve scheme and the talks ended with a presentation by Richard Scott, project manager for the wildflower charity Landlife. Richard talked   about designing wildlife habitat into urban areas and explained the opportunities and costs involved. Most of all, he helped to dispel some of the myths about wildflower meadows "being difficult" with a range of inspiring stories and photos from Merseyside.

Kent Wildlife Trust is keen to see more of the county's road network managed for wildlife, particularly in urban areas in the Thames Gateway  and workshop delegates were asked to answer the question: "What does Kent Wildlife Trust need to do to encourage more Roadside Nature Reserves to be created?"

A number of people suggested that better publicity was needed, particularly amongst local authorities, and interestingly transport policy makers, as to the benefits of such an approach. It was also suggested that road verges and other linear features should be seen as integral to an area's green infrastructure,contributing to the connectivity of green spaces and enhancing the landscape character of an area. Finally, roadside nature reserves were seen as a great opportunity to engage the public in wildlife conservation and an opportunity to galvanise community pride in their "neighbourhood nature reserves".

The seminar ended with a brief discussion about the perceived obstacles to designing wildlife-friendly roadside verges into new developments and a range of ideas were put forward. Given the range of disciplines covered by those attending, it made for some interesting feedback and some suggested that it was only a matter of time before wildlife sensitive management prescriptions started finding their way into new developments.

Fears of high costs, slow results and complex management regimes were allayed by Richard Scott who pointed out the cost savings associated with using wildflowers and the flexibility inherent in the "creative conservation" approach.

Most agreed that attitudes were changing, particularly in light of the anticipated expansion in the use of sustainable urban drainage systems (or SUDS) in urban areas and that what was needed were clear management prescriptions, and of course, success stories in the region.

Kent Wildlife Trust is keen to work with planners, consultants, landscape architects and greenspace managers who are interested in creating or managing grassland for wildlife - as part of it's Living Landscape project. So, if you have a project in mind  and would like to be at the cutting edge of creative conservation in urban areas in Kent and Medway then please get in touch and we will try to help. Alternatively we'd like to hear about your success stories which will help in developing the best practice guidance that this seminar identified as being so important. 

Presentations from the Life in the Grass Lane Seminar are available for download below but for more information please contact Paul Pearce; Living Landscape Green Infrastructure Development Officer on 01622 662012 or by email at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Photos courtesy of Cumbria Wildlife Trust and Landlife.

Powerpoint Presentations
An introduction to landlife Richard
Scott.ppt (103MB)

KWT Roadside Nature reserves
Gill Tysoe.ppt (4.9MB)

Policies and legislation
Sarah Taylor.ppt (13MB)

Green Infrastructure and Roadside nature reserves
Paul Pearce.ppt (6.8MB)

 

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