Managed for Wildlife Trials Consultation

"Let's work in partnership with community volunteers to manage more areas for wildlife in the future." - Perth & Kinross Council

On the 7^th February 2022, Perth & Kinross Council's Community Greenspace Team launched the ‘Managed for Wildlife Trials’ public consultation. The consultation is now on the consultation hub at https://consult.pkc.gov.uk/communities/managed -for-wildlife/ and includes a short survey with a Storymap which shows all the sites and areas within the trials in an easy to view and understand format.

To encourage biodiversity and help mitigate climate change Perth & Kinross Council will be managing some areas in selected parks and other green spaces in a different way in 2022 (on a trial basis). These trial areas have been selected to give more space for nature and help attract bees, butterflies and other insect pollinators by letting the grass and native plants grow and flower. Throughout 2022 our Managed for Wildlife consultation survey will remain open so that we can take everyone’s views into consideration, after all, our open spaces are there for everyone to enjoy. The results from the survey will help plan how we can best support nature within our parks and open spaces in future.

The Community Greenspace Team are looking to find out the different species living in our Parks and Open Space so that they can have a better understanding of how to manage them. Please help by recording wildlife in your local area.

The webpage ‘Encouraging wildlife and biodiversity in parks and open spaces’ explains what Perth & Kinross Council are doing in more detail and includes a list of all sites with maps. Perth & Kinross Council will also be placing the ‘Managed for Wildlife Trials Consultation’ logo at all affected sites to ensure everyone has the chance to comment.

The areas within the 2022 trials include:

• Areas within 8 sites which will be cut and lifted once in September/October, this will encourage more native flowers the following season.
• Areas within 37 sites which will be naturalised by letting the grass and other plants grow and flower.
  • Within the numbers above, 3 sites have areas with both styles of management (South Inch and Viewlands Reservoir in Perth, Larghan Park in Coupar Angus).

Perth & Kinross Council are inviting people to leave their contact details if they would like to get involved and help us deliver more for biodiversity and wildlife in future. Local people can help to assess the wildlife benefits of the trial areas and/or get involved with helping to raking off grass cuttings or planting bulbs in some areas.

Perth & Kinross Council will monitor the comments received regularly throughout the year and may amend the trial areas if required. The consultation will run until the end of the growing season in October. The results and trials will be evaluated to develop a plan for 2023.