I hope, like me, you’ve been getting out and about around Reading over the summer – when the weather has lived up to the season.
There’s such an incredible range of over 50 parks and open spaces available to us, despite Reading being an urban and densely populated area, and our team do an amazing job in keeping them in great condition for your enjoyment.
But we don’t just keep them in good condition – our ambitions are to enhance the town’s biodiversity, and I’m pleased to say we’ve reached a really important milestone this year. For the first time, the amount of land in Reading adopted as conservation wildflower and grassland areas for rewilding has reached over 50 hectares.
Fifty-eight different locations across the town are nowset aside for rewilding to enhance the town’s biodiversity, which has expanded over time to areas ofProspect Park, Palmer Park, South Whitley, Whitley Wood Recreation Grounds and Kings Meadow.
We began rewilding in spring 2020, initially along larger highway verges, with the cutting of those verges altered to allow wildflower species to establish and grow. The policy of reduced and altered mowing schemes, along with enhancement and the additional reseeding of wildflowers when possible, has expanded despite some challenging weather conditions over the last few summers, and the success and benefits of the programme are spurring us on to keep enhancing it.
Embracing rewilding helps us reclaim and protect natural habitats and their native species by encouraging wildflowers to grow on previously mowed and manicured areas. Creating new, wildlife-rich habitats and reversing the decline in Reading’s biodiversity is positively affected by the return of habitats for bees, butterflies and other pollinating insects. As well as increasing biodiversity, the increase in wildflowers allows residents more opportunities to engage with and appreciate nature. For many, the visual displays provide a real uplift and add colour to their local community.
We declared a climate emergency in 2019, and the town is working towards its ambitions for a carbon neutral Reading by 2030. Our rewilding project is a key component in that, helping to absorb and store carbon in the ground.
We know this approach to rewilding is something residents strongly support, appreciative of a more biodiverse environment. Positive feedback received throughout the trial grew into local involvement from volunteers arranging their own neighbourhood rewilding. Several groups saw the benefits early on and organised themselves to create large areas of wildflowers in Waterloo Meadows, and establishing the Newtown Community Garden between Cumberland and Amity Roads.
Already this summer we’ve had residents taking to social media to share images of orchids growing in Prospect Park and praising the results of the rewilding project.
What started as a small trial in 2020 has become a successful, large-scale plan covering the equivalent of more than 100 football pitches, and we are continuing to expand the programme where we can.
The amount of dedication put in to understanding the right conditions for rewilding to work in different parts of the borough are well worth it, when we know just how much residents enjoy those efforts. We are still learning how to adjust our maintenance routines of these areas to the varied challenges such as drought and excessive rain, which are becoming increasingly common factors, but as we’re working on identifying other areas which may benefit from being included in the scheme, you’ll be able to enjoy the fruits of our work even more in future.
Liz Terry is the leader of Reading Borough Council
