Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust encourages people to help protect wildlife across the region

Grasping the opportunity to transform urban areas for nature would transform people’s lives too. — writes Erin McDaid, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust.

Wild creatures, including many that once thrived alongside us in urban areas such as hedgehogs and house sparrows, are in decline.

We know that access to nature is vital to supporting our wellbeing. So, with 90% of people living in urban areas, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust believes it is time to take a stand to help ensure that remaining urban habitats are protected and restored to support wildlife and help ensure people have access nature on their doorstep.

In our recent publication, Transforming Our Towns And City For People And Nature, we highlighted the inequality of access to nature, the plight of species and people’s desire for change.

In the document we also call on government, planners and politicians to take a nature-first approach when making decisions relating to planning or making investments in these vital areas that have such an impact on all our lives.

Our shared experience over the past couple of years has highlighted, like never before, that people must have access wildlife rich green spaces on their doorstep but, sadly, access to nature isn’t equal.

People living in urban areas often have little opportunity to experience and benefit from nature close to where they live, and in many places the endless pressure to build yet more homes which don’t necessarily meet local need, is making matters even worse.

Remaining green spaces and wild habitats are disappearing and developers are doing little to restore nature where it has already been lost.

There is a growing appreciation that access to nature supports people’s health and wellbeing. If we combine this with the fact that so many towns and cities across the county are looking to recover from the impacts of covid-19 and long-term decline of the high street — we should have the perfect catalyst for creative approaches to restoring nature to our towns and cities.

This would help locations stand out from the crowd and attract inward investment.

We want to see Nottinghamshire’s towns and our city transformed from grey to green — and we can all play our part.

The environment must be at the heart of policy decisions — not just an afterthought.

By replacing lifeless green spaces with a network of habitats to support nature’s recovery we can create urban oases that brighten people’s lives and bring people together.

By harnessing nature-based solutions to link fragmented landscapes we can reimagine the City of Nottingham and towns, from Newark and Mansfield to Retford, Worksop, Beeston and Bingham with more spaces to connect with nature and enable both wildlife and people to thrive.

We are currently working to secure improvements to planning legislation to protect and restore nature and to secure a legal right to local access to nature in the government’s Levelling Up and Regeneration Bill.

Our vision outlines the changes we’d like to see locally.

These include commitments from councils to protect remaining wildlife habitats and ensure new areas are set aside for nature.

We want fairer access to nature, with minimum standards adopted for people’s access to natural green spaces.

We want developers to go beyond the legal requirements for Biodiversity Net Gain by striving to deliver a 20% increase in nature.

We want to help local authorities plan ahead by identifying new areas where nature could be restored to help deal with climate change and improve health and wellbeing.

Communities are no longer prepared to sit back and watch whilst remaining wild areas and green spaces disappear. They are increasingly speaking out and want their voices to be heard.

They also want to see leadership to tackle the nature and climate crisis.

The Save Newark’s Greenspaces Stop the Chop campaign, to save mature trees near Newark Library from being felled, proved that local campaigns can win against the odds