It’s my absolute pleasure to pick up where Kate left off and to send you the next update from Plantlife’s Road Verge Campaign.

Kate did such a great job winning nearly 133,000 pledges of support for wildlife along our road verges – so it’s a real privilege to take the baton and run the next leg.

The first flush of spring has passed with early dog violets and primroses now over in most locations, but bluebells and greater stitchwort are now opening up. At the base of hedgerows on many of our best verges you can spot signs of an ancient woodland past and these special places need to be protected. Allowing cuttings to pile up enriches the soil and can lead to the now familiar sight of cleavers smothering hedgerows by late-summer.

Following a strong start which succeeded in raising awareness and focusing media attention on our precious green nature networks, the Road Verge Campaign has now stepped up a gear. Plantlife is taking a more strategic direction and will be focusing on supporting and building relationships with local authorities. 

We are starting to work more with Natural Resources Wales, Scottish Environment Link, the Local Government Technical Advisers Group and the major infrastructure service providers. Our aim will be to provide guidance to those who are responsible for the safety and efficiency of our road networks in ways that help them meet and exceed their own green targets under new environmental legislation and to take new opportunities with new technologies and ways of working.

We continue to work with the media to push road verges up the conservation agenda. I had the opportunity on Wednesday 20 April to give a brief interview about road verge litter on BBC Points West evening news. A little nerve-wracking! - but I think I managed to weave in some important messages.

Please continue to lobby your local MP and your local highways authority to manage public green infrastructure as part of the network nature’s recovery needs. While Plantlife is stretched too thinly to support every community initiative, we hope that the information we are developing on our website can act as a helpful resource in most cases.

I will be back in touch with more updates on progress.

If you would like to support the campaign further, please consider donating or becoming a Plantlife member today – we’d love to have you on board. 

Thank you again for your support and very best wishes,

Mark

Mark Schofield
Road Verge Advisor
 

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