The Greasby neighbours giving nature a helping hand

A group of Greasby neighbours has ‘adopted’ a small piece of green space in their community and are now tending it with the aim of reinvigorating the area to create a wildlife-friendly environment, that enables the reintroduction of wildlife.

After consultation with Wirral Council and Wirral Wildlife Trust, the neighbours have been given the go-ahead for a community project to regenerate the green space and, as part of phase 2 of the project, the pond between Bromsgrove Road, Malmesbury Close, and Willow Park.

Their plan is to maintain the site, which measures approx ⅔ acre, on an ongoing basis. The first phase is to dig over an area of the green space so that it will be ready to re-sow with wildflowers and grasses and to thin out the overgrown brambles and ivy. About 5% of the site will be regularly mowed, to allow for children to play and families to be able to sit and have picnics, but the rest of the site will be left to nature, with a bit of management to help it thrive and look its best.

birkenhead.news spoke to Nigel Murphy, one of the local residents involved with the project. He told us, “There’s two halves of the project, the first half is the open green space and the second half is the pond project. The first part is to clear the open space area and seed it with proper grass and wildflowers, to encourage a habitat for wildlife to return; the bees and butterflies and whatever other insects make it home.

“The second half is the pond project, which is a much bigger part. It will probably require getting some professionals in to do the heavy work. Whilst we’ve got a group of enthusiastic neighbours, due to the technical and safety aspects, getting professionals in is something we’re going to have to consider.”

Nigel hopes that the project will benefit the local community for years to come. “There’s the open space, part of which will be mowed and part will be wildflowers, so people can come and enjoy the wildflowers, with somewhere to sit on the grass. Then, round by the pond, we’re helping to create a lovely environment to hopefully more wildfowl. We only had two ducks at the pond last year and they looked quite sorry.” He hopes that with a bit of nature and a bit of management the area will attract more visitors to the pond, both wild and human.

Anne Moore is another neighbour who is liaising with Wirral Council and Wirral Wildlife Trust. She was in communication with the Wirral Wildlife Trust who offered advice on how to look after this particular plot of land so that the group would have a good idea of what was best practice, rather than jumping in, with lots of enthusiasm, but little knowledge.

Anne told us that there is a grant available for community groups from the council and they will come out to offer advice, however, the wheels of bureaucracy move very, very slowly. “The grant would help to employ somebody to get the storm-damaged tree out of the pond, clean the pond up, so that light gets into it, which will encourage the wildlife back. If you haven’t got the light [reaching the pond] and you’ve got too much overgrowth, you’ll lose the wildlife. To get wildlife back in, it has to be managed and under control.”

If you live in Greasby, near to the Bromsgrove Road, Malmesbury Close, and Willow Park area, you can keep up to date or even help out by joining the Greasby Village Facebook group.

For more advice about looking after greenspace near where you live, visit Wirral Wildlife Trust , Wirral Countryside Volunteers and Wirral Rangers

Main Image: Anne Moore (middle) and Nigel Murphy (right) with some of the local residents helping out.

Images credit: www.fotopiaimages.com

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