Credit: Collin Hayes
Stoke-on-Trent and urban Newcastle
Green Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle
Over the last decade, initiatives such as Stoke-on-Trent City Council's Greening for Growth programme and the SUNRISE project have worked to link and improve the green areas of Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-Under-Lyme. Most recently SWT worked with Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Newcastle Borough Council to deliver the Wilder Stoke Wilder Newcastle project, enabling local communities to further connect with the nature on their doorstep.
Wilder Stoke Wilder Newcastle, a community based project
Staffordshire Wildlife Trust lead an exciting GRCF (Green Recovery Challenge Fund) project to help connect urban areas with nature. Wilder Stoke Wilder Newcastle (WSWN) over 16 months, concluding in March 2023.
The project helped to create more diverse and adaptable habitats across eight sites in Stoke and Newcastle: Bateswood, Central Forest Park, Chatterley Whitfield Heritage Park, Coyney Woods, Hem Heath Woods, Holden Lane Pools, Lymedale Business Park, and Parrots Drumble, site which are a mixture of Staffordshire Wildlife and local authority owned land.
Wilder Stoke Wilder Newcastle improved community access through fun events as well as through educational conservation work. Local communities were encouraged to get involved in activities and explore these areas. Organised sessions included surveying, wildflower seed sowing and wild play as well as activities within schools. Family events such as bug hunts, woodland art sessions and litter picks also took place throughout the project. A resident’s survey was sent out to 200,000 homes inviting opinions to gauge local interest in wildlife and green areas, over 1,000 people responded to the survey.
During the project volunteers gave up 494 hours to help out with the various tasks needed to help improve the habitats at each site. And a Roving Ranger pack was launched to enable those who live and walk regularly in the Stoke and Newcastle areas to be more involved in caring for them. You can find out more and download the free pack here.
Wilder Stoke Wilder Newcastle provided improved access to and awareness of urban habitats. This approach lead to those habitats supporting a wider range of species in greater abundance. For example, amenity grassland is very common in urban green spaces but is either mown regularly and kept short, or left without any management at all. Neither provide diverse habitats, with only a handful of species present in often over-enriched soil. By using meadow management methods, such as taking an annual cut of hay, reintroducing wildflowers and other herb species, we can restore healthy and suitable soil conditions to produce a diverse range of flowers. This will support pollinators - insects such as butterflies, bees and hover flies. As small birds and mammals arrive to feed on the increasing food sources, both seeds and invertebrates, eventually predators will follow such as sparrow hawks, kestrels and owls.
Richard Burkmar
Six colourful wildflower meadows were created. Volunteers from Stoke and Newcastle, alongside our conservation team, spread wildflower seeds at six council-owned parks and nature reserves in autumn 2022. The seeds were harvested from the Trust’s Bateswood Nature Reserve, near Silverdale, in the summer. The first flowers bloomed in late spring and summer of 2023.
You can find more information and resources on the project website here.
ERDF SUNRISE
The SUNRISE Project (SUNRISE stands for ‘Stoke and Urban Newcastle Rediscovering Its Secret Environment’) united the efforts of the Trust to work for wildlife in Staffordshire with the overlapping aims of its project partners Stoke-on-Trent City Council, Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, the Environment Agency, Groundwork West Midlands, Staffordshire County Council and the Wild Trout Trust. The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), was match funded by the project partners. You can read more about the project on the website here.
This scale of funding represented one of the biggest investments that people in Stoke and Newcastle have seen in their wild spaces in living memory.
The project restored and enhanced the urban green space in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme. Sixteen urban sites in North Staffordshire benefitted from a major project to create new wildlife habitats, improved water quality and reduced flooding. The project increased ecological connectivity with a particular focus on the River Trent and its tributaries.
Why we are working to create a living landscape in Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme
Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle-under-Lyme are abundant in natural assets - together the areas boast 16 Local Nature Reserves, 158 parks, 63 Local Wildlife Sites, four Sites of Special Scientific Interest and 3,818 allotments - not to mention an extensive canal network and many thousands of gardens.
Improving the quality and connectivity of green spaces will bring many benefits to Stoke-on-Trent and Newcastle.
- Health and wellbeing - better access to the natural environment creates happier, healthier communities, and residents are more likely to take exercise in well-used, inviting open spaces.
- Economic benefits - an attractive, well-managed landscape will bring businesses and jobs to the area. Additional income can be generated by encouraging sympathetic commercial uses of our popular green spaces, such as new cafes and sporting facilities.
- Boosting tourism - By improving the visitor experience at our local green spaces, we can attract more visitors and generate new income sources.
- Naturally vibrant - having linked networks of green space will help wildlife to cope better with changes to our climate and the loss of habitats in the wider countryside
- Raising aspirations - An attractive Living Landscape will draw students to North Staffordshire to study at the two universities, as well as creating opportunities for partnership working.
Stoke Local Plan Issues and Options Consultation - Our Response
The Trust has outlined key actions that need to be taken to halt the decline of nature and ensure a thriving network of wildlife-rich greenspaces in Stoke-on-Trent in its response to the Stoke Local Plan Issues and Options Consultation.
Read our full response below