Nature in your Neighbourhood

A woman crouches in a meadow and inspects something in her hand. There are trees behind her. She wears beige casual trousers and a dark top, plus a woollen hat.

Community groups will be trained to survey and monitor nature numbers throughout the project providing key data to PhD students. Photo by Matthew Roberts.

A National Lottery Community Fund project

Do you live in the Staffordshire Moorlands and want to make your area better for nature? Then you've come to the right place!

Nature in Your Neighbourhood is a five-year innovative community led project which began in 2024 and is all about supporting communities in the Moorlands with improving and monitoring habitat health. It's hoped that over time, this project will highlight how much boosted biodiversity benefits both people and planet.

Project partners include Moorlands Climate Action, Staffordshire Wildlife Trust, Keele University, OUTSIDE, Staffordshire Moorlands District Council and Staffordshire Council Voluntary Youth Services (SCVYS).

The partnership will help communities to develop relationships with landowners and together improve habitats across the area. This could be a roadside verge with potential to become a mini meadow, or an area of parish council greenspace which could be transformed to a wetland where wildlife thrives. Staffordshire Wildlife Trust will provide ecological knowledge of sites, training and good practice guidance, while Keele University will provide training in surveying and data analysis.

Want to get involved and have a place in mind in your area? Complete our online form and we'll be in touch to chat about it. Please note that sites must fall within the Staffordshire Moorlands District Council boundary and the deadline for site submissions is 11.59pm on 31 December.

Fill in site nomination form

Don't have any land in mind, but are keen to be involved? Send us an email at wilderenquiries@staffs-wildlife.org.uk

A wildflower meadow beneath a cloudy sky, with a row of trees in the distance. The meadow is filled with colourful flowers and green grasses. In the foreground are two tall, pink towers of common spotted orchid flowers. A black and white marbled white butterfly rests on one

Marbled white butterfly on a common spotted orchid in a wildflower meadow © Tom Marshall

Giving nature a helping hand

Community groups will be trained so they can survey and monitor nature numbers throughout the project providing key data to researchers. This will inform a best practice approach for other community centred action.

A woman dressed in dark clothing and a woolly hat pushes a long device into the earth in a big open space with trees in the background

Researchers will monitor the amount of carbon stored in each space, tracking how this changes as the habitat improves during the project. Photo by Tom Ellis.

Better for climate

Researchers will monitor the amount of carbon stored in each space, tracking how this changes as the habitat improves during the project.

Two large goose lit up with other lit up paper sculptures at night

OUTSIDE, an Arts Council and lottery funded group, will run design workshops so that groups can use their imagination to design installations to enhance spaces.

Inspiring and increasing understanding

OUTSIDE, an Arts Council and lottery funded group, will run design workshops so that groups can use their imagination to design installations to enhance spaces. These will help the wider community understand the project's benefits to nature.

A project funded by The National Lottery Community Fund

The text Community Fund in pink and black text with an outline graphic of a hand with its fingers crossed

Thanks to National Lottery players, Nature in your Neighbourhood led by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust has received £752,415 over five years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. The project will support communities in the Staffordshire Moorlands to restore green spaces that are important to them, whilst also measuring the impacts these changes have on biodiversity and climate mitigation. Project action and learning will be communicated to the wider public using art installations throughout the Moorlands.

This funding comes from the Climate Action Fund, a £100 million commitment over 10 years from The National Lottery Community Fund to support communities across the UK to take action on climate change and involve more people in climate action. This forms part of one of the funder’s four key missions in its 2030 strategy, ‘It starts with community’ - supporting communities to be environmentally sustainable.