New meadows to create bloom in Plymouth parks

Wednesday 1st October 2014

Buglife are creating new areas of wildflower meadow after receiving a grant from the Langage Landscape Fund. This community project will provide just over 2 hectares of new meadow, full of flowers which will provide a life-line for pollinating insects such as Bumblebees and Hoverflies.

Rupert Goddard, Buglife’s Conservation Officer said “Our pollinators are struggling due to a lack of food and habitat; meadow projects like these are a fantastic way in which we can all help to improve the situation for important insects. We are looking for volunteers to come and help us plant wild flower plants in the park.”

The new meadows will be sown within Radford and Mount Gould Park with help from local volunteers and Plymouth City Council. Buglife will be holding planting events on Saturday 11 October from 10am at Radford Park and Saturday 18 October from 11am at Mount Gould Park. As part of the larger Big Greenspace Challenge, these meadows will help the local wildlife and create beautiful parks for residents and visitors.

Councillor Brian Vincent, Cabinet member for the Environment said: “This is a brilliant project that not only creates something lovely to look at for our human residents, but helps our bees and insects who carry out such a vital role pollinating our plants and caring for our environment.

Plymouth is already changing how it manages its green space – and that’s roadside verges as well as parks as part of a concerted effort to look after our pollinators – we hope to see some volunteers join us in this worthy task.”

Roy Bailey, Generation Manager of the Centrica Langage Energy Centre said, “It really is fantastic for us at Langage Energy Centre to be able to support great community focused projects like these, seeing the benefits that these projects bring make Centrica and the power station team feel very proud”.

To find out more about our pollinator work in Plymouth, visit our Plymouth’s Buzzing webpage