Plymouth's ground-breaking approach to allowing nature to thrive in the city has been recognised with a national award.
Our innovative work in managing 40 per cent of our grassland for nature, earned our team the Best Parks, Grounds Maintenance and Horticulture Service award at the Association for Public Service Excellence (APSE) Annual Charity Awards Dinner.
This approach, backed by experts from the Devon Wildlife Trust and invertebrate conservation trust Buglife, has been for the benefit of people and wildlife.
Longer grass and flowers provide food and homes for pollinating insects like bees and butterflies – bringing nature closer to residents than ever before.
The parks and open spaces that we all love have still been regularly mowed but where there are grassy areas that are of more use to wildlife than people, like steep banks and verges, we’ve cut around the edges and left the rest to grow wild.
As a result, there have been all kinds of wonderful coloured wildflower where once there was only green and with them all the bees and bugs that keep the eco-system working.
Councillor Tom Briars-Delve, Cabinet Member for the Environment and Climate Change, said: "I am so delighted to receive this award and my thanks go to all the staff who made this possible.
“This approach has been about so much more than just how often we manage green spaces on the ground. It’s about the whole approach – the strategy behind it; the engagement with stakeholders and partners as well as the value of data-led decisions through our Green Minds and Future Park Accelerator programmes.
"We've still got a long way to go to ensure that biodiversity in Plymouth is at the level that we want it to be but this is a great indication that we are going in the right direction."
The APSE Awards are specific to frontline services provided by UK local authorities. This year, the awards included 21 categories, covering the vast majority of local services.
The Council was also shortlisted in two other categories.
Work on a project that will ensure developers benefit the wider environment was nominated in the Best Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship Initiative while operational work on our urban meadows featured in the Best Innovation or Demand Management Initiative.
Information on how we manage grass in Plymouth can be found here.