Councils - county, district, town and parish alike - have a huge part to play in natures recovery.

At Wild Solutions, we have worked with several district and parish councils to create Local Nature Recovery Action Plans, providing detailed local strategies focusing on increasing the area’s value for nature, putting the right habitat in the right place.

The strategies firstly identify the ecological baseline and value of present habitats and then using Derbyshire Wildlife Trust’s Nature Recovery Network map, we identify the gaps and priorities to develop comprehensive, achievable action plan for the area.

As well as detailing a clear strategy and management actions, the reports provide an overview of potential funding mechanisms, including projects and schemes that can be integrated within the project.

In our work with local councils, we also support on the identification of and feasibility planning for Biodiversity Net Gain delivery sites, creating biodiversity banks on council owned land to offset biodiversity losses through local developments.

Notably, we carried out this work for Bolsover District Council. The work reached a pinnacle upon the completion of the final report and the delivery of a ‘Biodiversity Summit’, a day where key stakeholders within the district met to identify key actions and goals to begin Bolsover's journey towards wildlife restoration.

Our Wild Solutions team has worked with Northern Rail to create a bespoke biodiversity strategy.

It identifies key goals to be carried out on each of Northern Rail’s 472 stations, ensuring that actions implemented are of the highest strategic significance - once implemented it will mean each small station will be uplifted so they are of ecological value within the wider landscape.

Each station has been provided with up to ten priority actions which are based on regional and local targets, the surrounding habitats and the neighbouring species assemblage, creating ambitious but achievable goals.

As part of this, our GIS team has developed an interactive webmap to allow Northern Rail and the station volunteers to access and record key environmental data associated with the stations.

We are now progressing to the implementation stage of the project and are working with Northern Rail and a number of other Wildlife Trusts to deliver actions for wildlife on the ground.

The scope of this project includes stakeholder engagement, future surveys and management plans created for selected, priority stations and goals to turn the stations in a wildlife rich, community valued space.

Derbyshire Wildlife Trust has worked with Toyota for decades, surveying and creating new habitats both within the wider site and along the ‘green grid’ a network of pollinator corridors that run throughout the industrial site, creating new spaces for nature in areas that are traditionally barren. The work had led to a noted increase in pollinator, bird and bat species within the industrial area of the site as well as sections of the wider site becoming designated as a local wildlife site. As a result of continued partnership work, the Toyota green grid is one of the most wildlife rich industrial area you are likely to encounter in England.

To see more about our partnership with Toyota, see the attached case study.

Golf Courses are often an excellent location for wildlife, with large expanses of green spaces that have huge potential for uplift and restoration through small scale, strategic action.

We have worked closely with Cavendish Golf Club over the past few years, surveying their landholding, creating a long term rewilding management plan and supporting them in implementing positive ecological change, such as leaky wooded dams, to alleviate flood risk within the wider catchment.

See our blog post here for more information on the action being taken by Cavendish.