Renaturing in Adur and Worthing

What is renaturing?

Adur & Worthing Councils have been working hard over the last three years to explore opportunities of where we can renature (also known as rewilding) within our parks and open spaces.

This is a balance we need to consider within the spaces and areas we have for both nature and humans to thrive.

Parks offer amazing places to run free, to play sport, to have a picnic, to use our playgrounds but we also must take into consideration that nature is struggling and enable opportunities for nature to flourish and regain its strength in as many areas as possible. This in turn will benefit our own health and wellbeing in the process.

There are a variety of options we have been delivering within our spaces and these are what they look like:

Bulbs: We have in certain areas planted thousands of mixed species bulbs in locations to create an extended flowering season. This is a fantastic way of extending the flowering period to support our bees and other pollinators.
Wildflower areas: We have established wildflower areas all ready as well as continuing to create more. Some of this has been through seeding areas but some of this has been created by not cutting grass areas and allowing the natural seed base to flourish and flower. We have seen whole areas filled with natural species from Sussex flourish and in turn, drawing in new species such as the Adonis Blue butterfly that we have not seen in these areas before.
Reduce our mowing areas: This has created wildflower areas in some places and in others has shown us that there is very little seed stock in place and that we will need to make some interventions to aid the recovery of these areas. This will mainly be carried out by harvesting wildflower seeds from areas where we already have a good natural seed bank and transferring these over to the areas to naturally seed.

All of these processes take time, thought and an understanding of our landscapes to know what they need and where we know there is support or opportunity needed. We will continue to work through this process into the future as landscapes start to adapt and change to ensure that we work with and alongside our landscapes.

Get involved: Our park rangers will be taking photos of eye-catching flora and fauna they see during their work and we will be posting them on our Facebook page. Send us your photos of Adur and Worthing wildlife to news@adur-worthing.gov.uk (with a subject of "RENATURING PHOTOS")and we will share them as well.