Nature in Your Neighbourhood: A Year of Amazing Discoveries

What a year it’s been for the Nature in Your Neighbourhood project. People in the Staffordshire Moorlands have been busy learning and celebrating the wildlife right on their doorstep, and the results are incredible.

This project has given our community an opportunity to enhance the biodiversity of the area. This quiet, accessible space enables local people to enjoy a sense of belonging, form friendships and creates the chance for them to engage with nature.

Gary Lowe
Rudyard Lake Promenade Woodlands

Over the past 12 months, they’ve completed 10 baseline surveys, 22 summer and autumn surveys, and joined 9 training sessions. More than 500 people have taken part, recording 5,510 observations across the project sites. That’s a lot of nature to love!

Through these surveys, communities have identified 144 different species near their homes, including plants, trees and lichens. Some of the star finds include the rare delicate scarlet waxcap fungi at Hulme End and the common spotted orchid at Cecily Brook. The most spotted plant? The cheerful creeping buttercup. A firm favourite among participants was the delicate pale pink cuckoo flower, which plays a vital role in supporting orange-tipped butterflies with a food source.

Those involved in the project have embraced the chance to better local greenspaces.

Our vision is to create a more species-diverse area that will attract lots of pollinators, providing food for our spectacular swifts who visit each summer. It will be a symbol of nature right bang in the middle of our neighbourhood.

Kate Hamey
Swifts of Leek

A street and road t junction with an area of grass running infront of the houses and next to the road. A person is crouched on the grass surveying nature.

Residents carry out at survey at Hargate, Leek by Kate Hamey

A group of 5 people huddle around a quadrant on the floor to survey nature

Group photo - survey being carried out by residents as part of the Nature in Your Neighbourhood project by Anne Beardmore

A small group of people walk through a summer meadow filled with buttercups. Mature trees border the field.

A small group carries out a nature survey at the Grindon Nature in Your Neighbourhood site.

A group of people (men and women) stand together in a field infront of a hedgerow. They wear high vis vests

Cecilly Brook Equalbase group with quadrant by Anne Beardmore

Summarising the ethos of the project perfectly, Anne Beardmore, from The Friends of Cecilly Brook group, says: “With nature in crisis, we all need to do our bit to bring it back from the brink. Together we can ensure that nature thrives.”

If you live in the Staffordshire Moorlands and haven’t joined the project yet, now’s the perfect time! We’d love to welcome you to a local group - just drop us a line at wilderenquiries@staffs-wildlife.org.uk, and we’ll get you connected.

The Nature in Your Neighbourhood project is all about empowering communities to make their patch better for wildlife. Together with our partners we’re helping residents connect with landowners, improve habitats, and create spaces where nature can thrive. From roadside verges to parks and green spaces, every effort counts.

Here’s to another year of discovery, learning, and making Staffordshire wilder! Join us, get involved, and let’s keep making the future brighter for nature right where we live.

The project partners are Moorlands Climate Action, Keele University, OUTSIDE, Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, and Staffordshire Council of Voluntary Youth Services.

Thanks to National Lottery players, Nature in your Neighbourhood led by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust has received £752,415 over five years from The National Lottery Community Fund, the largest community funder in the UK. This funding comes from the Climate Action Fund, a £100 million commitment over 10 years from The National Lottery Community Fund to support communities across the UK to take action on climate change and involve more people in climate action. This forms part of one of the funder’s four key missions in its 2030 strategy, ‘It starts with community’ - supporting communities to be environmentally sustainable.