Bee friendly! New nature friendly zones in your neighbourhoods
Nature friendly zones
On this page you can find information about the ways our Neighbourhood Care team is working hard to make neighbourhoods great, green, nature friendly places to live, now and in the future.
Natural meadows
We have selected plots across the borough where grass will be left to grow until the end of the cutting season in October. In place of the grass, we will look to plant seeds hoping for wildflowers to grow, to create important habitats for insects and bring colour and brightness to our open spaces.
The amount of land equates to less than 1% of all the grassed areas we maintain. Our team will cut a two-metre strip around the outside of each plot as well as a walkway through the middle for you to use.
Grass cutting in other areas will continue as normal.
Native flower spaces
This year, we have planted zones in neighbourhoods across the borough with native flower bulb mix.
This will bring swathes of vibrant flowers to plots of green space for you to enjoy and attract wildlife like bees, ladybirds and butterflies.
You will notice flowers start to appear over the next two growing seasons before the areas fully flourish. Our team will cut them, if required, each September and October in preparation for the following season.
Why are we doing this work?
We’ve introduced our wildflower plots, natural meadows and native flower spaces in response to important feedback from our customers who tell us that sustainability is important to you as we look after your neighbourhoods.
These new nature friendly initiatives contribute to our ongoing work to reduce our environmental impact, help tackle climate change and deliver lots of other important benefits for our customers and communities, now and in years to come, in line with our Sustainability Strategy.
If you’d like to get involved in any of the projects listed on this page and support similar improvements in your neighbourhood, please contact us on 0161 393 7117 or email servicecentre@fcho.co.uk.
Grass cutting
We hope that by improving our open spaces with nature friendly zones, using better equipment and getting round all neighbourhoods every 2 weeks April-October, our grass cutting service will continue to improve and we can keep your local areas looking great. You can see when we’ll be cutting grass in your area and find answers to questions about our grass cutting service here on our website.
Neighbourhood Care and sustainability
The new nature friendly zones in our neighbourhoods are the latest measure introduced by our Neighbourhood Care team to reduce its environmental impact. During the winter season the team started to use battery operated grounds maintenance machinery, the benefits of which include no exhaust emissions, lower noise levels and reduced vibration for operators and our caretaking team introduced new battery operated cleaning equipment in our communal blocks to help improve our service to you and implement environmentally friendly ways of working.