Community engagement
The big picture
The Government has committed to ‘double nature’ and in response our District Council has launched a Biodiversity for All initiative.
The Trust teamed up with Natural Cambridgeshire, the District Council, RSPB, Wildlife Trust, NFU, Natural England, the Farmers Wildlife Advisory Group and the National Trust to lead the development of a strategy to increase biodiversity, and improve access to our green spaces. To address grass roots opinions we secured funding to create three Community Engagement Workshops, one for each stretch of the Ouse Valley through the county.
St Ives to Godmanchester
Lead by Dr Jade Gunnell this workshop was held in September 2023 with around 40 stakeholder participants. The full-day session produced a wealth of local feedback on what was needed, and the analysis resulted in five key projects. Most popular was to improve the tree canopy, followed by improving river water quality, enhancing flood meadows, encouraging access and pressing for official National Landscape recognition.
So now we have a priority of objectives and have already secured further funding to progress the first project using a firm of professional tree consultants.
St Ives to Earith
The next section of the valley to receive our attention in this way in the second workshop was held in Bluntisham in January 2024. This workshop was funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery. We are very grateful for their support. The outcomes have identified the need for the Trust to employ a well-qualified person to take projects forward, especially in the area of volunteer coordination. More details will follow once funding has been secured to facilitate this project.
St Neots to Huntingdon
The third workshop was held in Brampton in October 2024 and we are looking forward to analysing those feedbacks so we can also deliver the projects most needed in this section of the valley. This workshop was funded by players of People’s Postcode Lottery. We are very grateful for their support.
The outcomes
The mass of data from all three workshops attended by a broad spectrum of stakeholders from Parish and Town Councils, local conservation groups, landowners, businesses, Rotary groups and the District Council, has now been analysed and has helped us focus our areas of project development going forward. In summary these are: Access; More Nature; Water; and Landscape Designation. Our Feb 2025 newsletter The Valley was dedicated to covering these areas in more detail and can be viewed here.
Sights & Sounds
For some days my eye was caught by a Coot ‘waving’ at me. As it swam by, some way off, one leg was raised in...
Remember the Dainty Footwork sighting of the Little Egret? Imagine my joy when in the same spot, a Great Egret alighted this time and proceeded...
New Year’s Day. Time to venture out and blow away the cobwebs. So to Ouse Fen with a brilliant blue sky and a biting wind....
A beaver in the Ouse Valley? Well, not yet! But not far away. In fact in Rushden Lakes, just off the River Nene near Peterborough,...
We had worried about the nest for quite a while. The Great Crested Grebes chose to build a floating mass of weed in the reedbed...
The delicate pale pink Cuckoo Flower, also known as Lady’s Smock (Cardamine pratensis), is now in bloom. It grows in damp places – along ditches,...