800 football pitches of land turned pollinator friendly

The project exceeded it's targets to create pollinator friendly space within the urban environment across 12 cities / towns: Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff, Falmouth, Ipswich, Leeds, Leicester, Plymouth, St Austell, Truro, Wadebridge and York.

Paul Hetherington, Director of Communications at Buglife, said: “The Urban Buzz has been a fantastic community effort making a real difference for our precious pollinators.

"Who could have believed when this project was planned that local communities could identify the equivalent of over 800 football pitches worth of land that has now been turned into pollinator hot spots across our urban environment or that nearly 12,000 people would come out and play their part in creating this flowery habitat.

"At a time of widespread global insect declines these achievements give us all heart that there is the desire, will and ability to turn things around before it is too late. Buglife would like to thank all our project partners, funders and volunteers for this game changing intervention.”

over 800 football pitches worth of land that has now been turned into pollinator hot spots

Over 800 football pitches worth of land that has now been turned into pollinator hot spots

The project was funded by multiple organisations including Biffa Award, the People’s Postcode Lottery, The Heritage Fund, ,The Garfield Weston Foundation and Bunzl. Many other individual councils, businesses and foundations have all chipped in to ensure the project’s success.

Gillian French, Head of Grants, Biffa Award said: “At a time when our natural world is in decline projects like this one couldn’t be more vital. It is fantastic to be able to support Urban Buzz and exciting to watch the work going from strength to strength. Brand new habitats are being created for pollinators and we can’t wait to see the impact this will have on local wildlife.”