18th Dec, 2009
New Ferry Butterfly Park, a valuable nature reserve, is threatened with closure. The Park is a community-run Cheshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve next to Bebington Station, Wirral. Cheshire Wildlife Trust have leased the site since 1993 but have...
Click for more...27th May, 2009
LOVE PARKS WEEK.
Love Parks Week features events in parks throughout the UK between 25th July and 2nd August. It is an annual campaign, organised by the parks charity GreenSpace. The new website has recently been launched, featuring new resources, the...
Click for more...27th May, 2009
'THE TRUE VALUE OF NATURE' - NATURAL ENGLAND'S DRAFT POLICY ON THE ECOSYSTEMS APPROACH.
Natural England has published a consultation seeking views on a draft policy document that sets out the agency's approach to ecosystems. The consultation document ...
Click for more...27th May, 2009
'WORLD CLASS PLACES: THE GOVERNMENT'S STRATEGY FOR IMPROVING QUALITY OF PLACE'.
The way places and buildings are planned, designed and looked after matters to the UK population in numerous ways. The quality of our built environment is an important inf...
Click for more...27th May, 2009
Green infrastructure needs to be taken as seriously as the more familiar 'grey infrastructure' of roads, railways and power lines, argues the Landscape Institute (LI) in a new publication, 'Green Infrastructure: connected and multifunctional lands...
Click for more...16th Apr, 2009
Great Places Great Cities
Glasgow 4th - 5th June 2009
sustainable cities … sustainable communities … sustainable living …
These concepts are taxing politicians and practitioners across the world – from downtown Detroit to the planned eco-cities in ...
Click for more...27th Nov, 2008
Environmental grant-maker, GrantScape, has launched a £300,000 fund designed to support high priority nature conservation projects in Inner London. This is the charity’s first grant programme dedicated to supporting urban biodiversity.The “Inner London...
Click for more...8th Aug, 2008
In May 2008 more than 400 scientists, planners and urban environmental practitioners met in Erfurt, Germany, at URBIO 2008. Their focus was urban biodiversity, in particular the current state of knowledge and practice in this field.
Amongst the outcom...
Click for more...18th Jul, 2008
A major conference on green roofs is being held on 17 and 18 September in Bishopsgate, central London. The main organisers are CIRIA (the Construction Industry Research Association) and Livingroofs.org. The Greater London Authority are hosting a recept...
Click for more...3rd Jul, 2008
GrantScape's “Inner London Nature Conservation Challenge” has been devised with support and input from the London Biodiversity Partnership, the London Boroughs Biodiversity Forum and the Greater London Authority (GLA) Biodiversity Team. Its target lau...
Click for more...12th May, 2008
Endless Villages or Endless Cities?
One of our Network members, Peter Shirley, has just produced a book about nature conservation in Birmingham and the Black Country, called 'The Endless Village Revisited'. It will be reviewed on this website ...
Click for more...8th Feb, 2008
Last year we highlighted the report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution on the urban environment. Network stalwart Mathew Frith did a review for ECOS, the long-running journal of the British Association of Nature Conservationists (B...
Click for more...3rd Feb, 2008
A community group in Liverpool has received support from the City Council in their fight to save Harthill Copse, a small woodland in Calderstone Park. In this reverse of the usual situation, the woodland is threatened by a local allotments associa...
Click for more...16th Jan, 2008
Local authorities now have a duty to have regard to the conservation of biodiversity in exercising their functions. This Duty was introduced by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 (NERC). The Duty affects all public authorities and a...
Click for more...3rd Dec, 2007
The Black Country's open spaces are in line for the biggest Lottery award ever - £50million, IF enough people vote for them in a national poll this week. The Black Country as Urban Park is one of four shortlisted projects (from an initial list of nearl...
Click for more...12th Nov, 2007
Time was when those of us advocating gardening for wildlife were denigrated by both our conservation and gardening colleagues. Things have, however, come a long way since Chris Baines wrote 'How to Make a Wildlife Garden' in 1985, and pioneered, with o...
Click for more...27th Oct, 2007
The Network has received a plea for help from a group on the Isle of Wight. The group has been formed to oppose development on a site which has been naturally regenerating for about 30 years. It is now home to over 42 different species of bird, a badge...
Click for more...5th Oct, 2007
The Construction Industry Research Association (CIRIA) is running two seminars ('Pastures new - using Green roofs on buildings') on green roofs. One is in London on 12 November and the other in Manchester on 1 November. Speakers include Dusty Gedge in&...
Click for more...4th Sep, 2007
Almost unnoticed nature conservation in urban areas had a small but significant victory last week. The Government published a new list of the UK’s most threatened species (over eleven hundred of them) and habitats (65 of them).
The new priority habit...
Click for more...8th Jun, 2007
Urban Wildlife Network President Chris Baines has been reflecting on the landscape of his childhood - the Limbo Land of the following article. (This first appeared in Green Places Magazine in 2006.) An interesting perspective in the light of recent sto...
Click for more...13th Mar, 2007
So says UWN Chair, David Nicholson-Lord. In a recent article he examines the ways in which politicians' claims of 'greeness' and 'sustainability' often do not bear scrutiny. He talks of 'cognitive disorder' - mistaking talking about something w...
Click for more...8th Mar, 2007
Urban Policy Too Timid
So says the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, introducing the report of its study on the urban environment, published on 6 March. The Urban Wildlife Network was one of forty organisations which presented evidence...
Click for more...13th Feb, 2007
Urban Wildlife Network President Chris Baines is talking about 'Gardening for People and Wildlife' at the RHS's Lawrence Hall in Westminster on Tuesday 3 April at 2.15pm. His talk is part of the Growing for Success series.
Chris will explain why garde...
Click for more...1st Feb, 2007
Following in the footsteps of the Urban Wildlife Network the Wildlife Trusts are holding another major conference in Manchester on 27 February about the benefits of environmental projects in urban areas. Its rather lugubrious title is 'Parklife! Creati...
Click for more...1st Feb, 2007
This is a free seminar on improving the ecology quality of housing estates at the Royal Horticultural Halls, Westminster, from 10am to 2pm on 26 February. The speakers are our own Mathew Frith, John Newton, ecological consultant, Sarah Burton of Natura...
Click for more...19th Dec, 2006
WWF-UK have published an important study into the ecological footprint of our suburbs. 'One Planet Living in the Suburbs' looks at the resource demands of 'average'and 'keen' residents in a typical part of suburbia - Solihull. The mythical residents ar...
Click for more...30th Nov, 2006
The Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) has just published a report called Compact Sustainable Communities. It claims to be ‘Making the case for well planned, higher density, mixed use urban development: meeting housing needs, improving quality of...
Click for more...15th Nov, 2006
Buglife, the invertebrate charity hit the front pages this week with its campaign to prevent development on West Thurrock Marshes. The full story is on its website (www.buglife.org.uk) and includes the following:
'In a move that has stunned wildlife c...
Click for more...8th Nov, 2006
A little known piece of legislation dating from 1965 (the Commons Registration Act) allows land to be declared as a ‘town green’ if it has been used for at least 20 years for informal recreation and pastimes. Such recreation might include strolling, bl...
Click for more...8th Nov, 2006
A belated welcome to the latest manifestation of what was once the Nature Conservancy. The Urban Wildlife network welcomes the new organisation and wishes all connected with it well. All the corporate-speak is on its website (www.naturalengland.org.uk)...
Click for more...8th Nov, 2006
“Imagine we could open up the minds of those who govern us. What assumptions about cities would we find there?” Any publication containing these words is likely to be of interest to UWN’s members, and others engaged in urban planning, regeneration and ...
Click for more...17th Oct, 2006
The Woodland Trust is organising a major conference on 17 and 18 October in Manchester called 'New woods, new lives, new landscapes'. It is described as 'A conference on creating woodland for our future'.
With a title like that UWN is not at all surpr...
Click for more...18th Sep, 2006
The Department for Communities and Local Government has recently published draft guidance on carrying out 'appropriate assessment' for protecting these sites for regional planning bodies and local authorities. They are inviting comments on the proposal...
Click for more...4th Sep, 2006
On 29 August 2006 the Department for Communities and Local Government put out this press release:
New statistics published today show that existing stocks of available 'brownfield' land could accommodate up to one million new homes.
The annual statis...
Click for more...22nd Aug, 2006
Last Urbio Published
Publications dealing specifically with the relationship between people and wildlife are few and far between. Over the years what there have been have shared a couple of characteristics - high quality contributors and content, and ...
Click for more...22nd Aug, 2006
Wildlife Trust Project Highlighted in ODPM Report
In the 32 pages of ODPM's 'Update', Creating Sustainable Communities' magazine for Spring 2006 there is just one page devoted to wildlife, but at least there is the one page. The subject is the Wildlif...
Click for more...22nd Aug, 2006
Rainwater Harvesting Conference
The Construction Industry Environmental Forum (CIEF) is hosting a rainwater harvesting workshop on 12 September in London. The half-day event starts at 2pm at CIRIA's premises in Old Street; delegates need to register b...
Click for more...22nd Aug, 2006
Major Conference Report
In February 2005 UWN held a national conference in Manchester attended by 120 people. It was called 'Greener Cities - Closing the Gap Between Policy and Practice'. Researchers, parks and open space managers and rangers, nature ...
Click for more...22nd Aug, 2006
English Partnerships' Annual Report published
English Partnerships' 2005/06 Annual Report has just been published (July 2006) (http://www.englishpartnerships.co.uk/). It shows this regeneration agency's expenditure up by 73% on the previous year to £8...
Click for more...21st Aug, 2006
Encouraging Park Wildlife
Earlier this year Cabe Space published a report entitled Making contracts work for wildlife: how to encourage biodiversity in urban parks. They say that 'Today, more than ever before, we understand that promoting biodiversity...
Click for more...21st Aug, 2006
Garden Wildlife Photographic Competition
You just have time to enter the BBC Gardeners' World Garden Wildlife Photographic Competition - entries have to be in by 31 August. The Competition is run in conjunction with English Nature. the organisers say ...
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