Becoming a Bee Friendly Borough is the aim of a new initiative launched in Stafford.

Local volunteers are working with the Borough Council to create a better environment for all pollinating insects such as bumblebees, honeybees, solitary bees, hoverflies, wasps, and butterflies.

On Thursday 14 March at 1.20pm, the campaign will be formally launched at the John Wheeldon Primary Academy which has already gained the Gold award of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. Children in the school have made solitary bee nests that they will be placing around the school.

The pollinator plans include encouraging more native flowers, shrubs and trees that provide nectar and pollen, supporting community groups to enhance their local open space for nature, reducing the use of pesticides and asking all residents to support the plan by sowing wildflower seeds and planting bee-friendly plants.

The project will include community workshops - with local experts educating residents, businesses, and schools about the importance of bees, the creation of pollinator friendly areas in parks and green spaces, and the installation of bee hotels, nesting boxes, and other structures to provide shelter and breeding sites for the insects.

The Stafford Steering Group will be looking to achieve ‘Bee Friendly’ status from the national “Bee Friendly Trust” - an award that recognises areas which have demonstrated actions and activities to increase pollinators.

Among the actions the Council has already undertaken to help pollinators are; improving 14 hectares of flower-rich meadows on Stone Meadows and Ferndown Local Nature Reserves (LNR), conservation grazing on Barlaston Common LNR - with an increase in heather and other plants, creating a meadow area at Eccleshall Road cemetery.

Last year the council successfully teamed up with the town’s Rising Brook Ground Force group to increase biodiversity on a large area of grass beside the town’s busy A449.

Councillor Tony Pearce, the Cabinet Member for Climate Action and Nature Recovery, said: “I am very pleased we have launched this initiative and it is great to hear that we are working with fantastic organisations and community groups across the borough that are already working to help us achieve ‘bee friendly’ status.

“Bees and their fellow pollinators are vital to the healthy existence of us, the economy, and our natural world. Ultimately, without them, our food supply would collapse.”

He added: “We want to encourage the planting of bee-friendly flowers and plants and reduce pesticide use by gardeners and communities. That way we will improve bee health and biodiversity - and we can only do this by working together.

Press Release No 6110