Hatfield Peverel Parish Council supports Essex Wildlife Trust’s Wilder Essex strategy, which you can read about here.

Urban Wildlife Champion Project

Essex Wildlife Trust’s Urban Wildlife Champion project aims to reconnect people with nature, inspiring and empowering them to take action for wildlife in their local area.

Hatfield Peverel resident, Donna Goddard, has volunteered to be an Urban Wildlife Champion in Hatfield Peverel and hopes to build a small team of volunteers to work on wildlife projects in the village.

Donna has decided to start with a small and manageable project to create a pilot mini-meadow in the village. The site chosen is the grass verge bordering Laburnum Way and the duck pond. In order to allow the native wildflowers to thrive, the mini-meadow will be mown only 2-3 times per year and the cuttings removed to prevent more competitive plants such as nettles from taking over. A strip will be mown around the edge to provide different habitats within the meadow and to keep it looking neat.

Donna hopes that this will eventually result in:

• Increased variety of colourful native wildflowers in the mini-meadow which are attractive to villagers
• Villagers adopting more green spaces and creating more mini-meadows throughout the village for which Donna will provide guidance and the Parish Council will monitor
• Increased diversity of plants and, as a result, insects and other wildlife in the village
• Insects and other wildlife being able to move more easily around the village (a wildlife corridor)

Our green spaces and road verges can be home to over 700 species of wildflower, including Meadow vetchling, Oxeye daisy, Common knapweed, Bird’s-foot trefoil, Lady’s-bedstraw and much more! This diversity not only provides essential nectar sources, a lifeline for our invertebrates but looks breathtakingly beautiful too. Flower-rich meadows can be supported in the smallest of green margins to the largest parks and recreational grounds. By adopting different mowing regimes and following a few basic management principles you can create flower-rich meadows across any town or village.  Essex Wildlife Trust

If you have questions or concerns about this project, would like to offer help with this and other wildlife-friendly projects in the village or have ideas for other wildlife projects, please contact Donna by phone on 01245 382550 or email wildlife-champion@hatfieldpeverelpc.com.

Wilder Towns, Wilder Villages Project

Hatfield Peverel Parish Council has signed up for Essex Wildlife Trust’s Wilder Towns, Wilder Villages project which has the following visions for wildlife and people.

VISION FOR WILDLIFE

We need more, bigger, better and crucially connected spaces for wildlife. Joined up, nature-rich spaces allow plants, animals, seeds and water to move from place to place and enable the natural world to adapt to change. It gives plants and animals more places to live, feed and breed.

 To recover, wildlife cannot be confined to nature reserves. Our towns and villages can be part of a nature recovery network, they can act as stepping stones and corridors for wildlife to adapt and thrive.

VISION FOR PEOPLE

We need more and better access to nature for all. We need to be connected to wildlife. Spaces for wildlife need to be publicly accessible. The link between green or blue spaces and health has now been recognised, there is evidence there are multiple benefits to reconnecting people and nature. We need wildlife and wildlife needs us. Our towns and villages can provide those vital gateways to the natural world.

This is a very new project and we are still working on our plans but it is likely to include some of the following:

• Transform local verges into wildlife havens
• Commit to a pesticide-free future
• Strengthen natural corridors using hedgerows to join up landscapes
• Plant more trees
• Reduce light pollution
• Create urban orchards
• Support sustainable use of previously developed land

Environmental Policy