Green Sefton

With wildflower meadows in full bloom across the Borough, we’re celebrating their importance in boosting our biodiversity, tackling the climate emergency and bringing nature to people’s doorsteps.

Here’s a few examples from across the Borough of why wildflower meadows are so vital.

Wildflower meadow trail – LCR Community Environment Fund

Ten wildflower sites across the region, including in Sefton, have been transformed by local children and residents bringing colour and nature to urban communities.

They were created by the Head North for Beauty project with a £49,000 grant from the £500,000 Liverpool City Region Community Environment Fund, established by Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram.

They form part of a new wildflower meadow trail from Everton in North Liverpool, through to Litherland in Sefton. The sites were ploughed in April and schoolchildren from All Saints Catholic Primary School and local residents helped sow the new meadows.

The meadows are now being looked after by volunteer community wildflower rangers.

Social enterprise Regenerus, the organisation which brought the Anthony Gormley statues to Crosby Beach, has partnered with Scouse Flowerhouse, The National Wildflower Centre, the Eden Project three local housing associations, Liverpool City Council, Sefton Council and the local community to create the meadows which attract wildlife, including bees, and aid carbon capture.

Liverpool has the country’s highest number of council wards with wildflower meadows – which are increasingly appreciated for their biodiversity benefits. Yet 97% of UK wildflower meadows have been lost since 1947.

Lowering the carbon footprint is high on the list of priorities for the Metro Mayor and in Sefton the Council is on track to be net zero carbon by 2030 – a target which was set out in its Climate Emergency declaration in 2019.

Metro Mayor Steve Rotheram said: “We have ambitious plans to tackle climate change in the city region, the climate emergency remains the biggest long-term challenge our region – and in fact the world – faces.

“We can all make a difference if we get together within our communities and each do our bit, whether that’s improving air quality with these beautiful wildflower meadows or leaving the car at home and walking or cycling to work. Our Community Environment Fund projects are promoting environmental issues at a grassroots level and deserve to be supported.”

Cllr Paulette Lappin, Cabinet Member for Regulatory and Corporate Services said: “We all have a role to play in protecting our planet, wildlife and each other from the effects of climate change and here in Sefton, supporting schemes like the wildflower trail is just one of the ways we are tackling this issue.

“It’s fantastic to see our natural and urban landscapes being celebrated, and we’ll continue to work with our communities, asking them to stop and think about small changes they can make to keep our Borough clean, green and beautiful.”

Rimrose Wildflower Meadow expansion

In March 2021, Sefton Council supported Victoria ward councillors to expand the Rimrose Valley Country Park wildflower meadow scheme, which already covered a large area near to the running track.

The community project was originally launched in 2019 by the Friends of Rimrose Valley group and aimed to create Merseyside’s largest wildflower meadow.

It was made possible thanks to the Sefton Crowd – Sefton Council’s online crowdfunding platform. Over £4,600 was pledged to support the ‘Bees, Blooms & Butterflies’ project.

With additional funding sourced earlier this year, a further 1.5 hectares were sown in the spring across the area between Derwent road and Queensway, adjacent to the Queensway Allotments.

The area is now in flower and has resulted in a total of 2.5 hectares of meadow in the Rimrose area.

Cllr Trish Hardy, Sefton Council’s Cabinet Member for Communities and Housing, said: “It’s fantastic to see this project quite literally flourish into a stunning wildflower meadow, creating a long-lasting environmental legacy for the people of South Sefton and beyond.”

Plantlife’s ‘Every Flower Counts’

If you’ve been inspired by hearing about Sefton’s wildflower havens, you’ve got until this Sunday 18^th July, to take part in Plantlife’s flower count.

Plantlife is a charity that works nationally and internationally to raise the profile of wildflowers, plants and fungi. It celebrates their beauty and carries out important work to protect their future.

To take part in the count, simply count the number of flowers in a square metre patch of lawn, submit to the Plantlife website and they’ll tell you how much nectar they’re producing and how many bees they’ll feed with your own Personal Nectar Score.

When it comes to providing vital nectar and pollen for bees, butterflies and other insects, every flower counts. The more wild flowers you have in your lawn the more nectar will be produced.

From your results, Plantlife will calculate a National Nectar Index to show how lawns across Britain are helping to feed pollinators. They’ll also reveal the top ten lawn flowers and show how to increase the number of flowers in your lawn.

Find out more on the Plantlife website: https://www.plantlife.org.uk/everyflowercounts/

Coastal scientists at Edge Hill University are making waves on the internet after launching their own YouTube channel in a bid to inspire the next generation of learners to protect the world’s coastlines.

Professor Irene Delgado-Fernandez, from the Department of Geography and Geology, has co-ordinated and produced Coasts for Kids, a series of short, educational videos to teach primary school children aged six to eight about the vital role that coasts play in our ecosystem.

Developed in partnership with Sefton Council and Southport Eco Visitor Centre, the Coasts for Kids videos have attracted global attention from across the international coastal community. Coastal scientists from other universities in the UK, Canada, Australia, Spain, France, and Mexico were involved in the project, as well as teachers and community artists.

The series of five videos have been narrated by school children in Sefton and are designed to empower children to understand the often complex language used in coastal science, in the hope that they will develop a greater awareness and interest in the challenges facing the world’s coastlines from an early age.

Prof Irene Delgado-Fernandez is a coastal geomorphologist and marine geoscientist and lead researcher on the Coasts to Kids project.

 

Prof Delgado-Fernandez said: “Our coastlines are under serious threat from rising sea levels, coastal erosion and flooding. These are significant challenges for our global community, and it’s critical that we educate children about this issue from an early age.

“One day this will be their world and their responsibility, so it’s vital that they are empowered with the knowledge to understand and enjoy learning about the precious and irreplaceable landscapes that make up our coasts.

“These children hold the potential within them to one day be the scientists and leaders with the power to influence the policies and decision-making that can protect our coastlines. It has been a wonderful experience to work with the children and to help them learn the language we use so often in our research. Not only has it bettered their understanding of our coasts, but it has reinforced our own knowledge and process on how we communicate our work to young people.”

 

Coasts for Kids is a collaborative experience between children and their parents, coastal scientists, community artists, teachers, animators and coastal managers.

Michelle Barnes, Lead Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Officer for Sefton Council’s Green Sefton Service, said: “In Sefton we have 22-miles of stunning dynamic coastline, constantly changing with tides, winds, waves, storms and people. It is important that we understand how these have shaped our coast over the years and will continue to do so into the future and with the threat of climate change.

“The Council’s Green Sefton team are incredibly proud to have supported this project, with my own son Henry, taking part to record a voiceover for episode two of the series. I know that these lasting resources will help to inform children and adults alike across the globe about how our coasts work, how precious they are, and I hope they will encourage and inspire more people into roles like my own where we are doing all we can to better understand and manage our changing coastline now and in the future.”

 

Darren Lloyd, Resident Teacher and Education Projects Co-ordinator at Southport’s Eco Centre, said: “Throughout much of our work the main ethos has always been about creating platforms to equip our young people with the skills and confidence to become educators in their own right. The Coast for Kids series is a fantastic tool to allow both teachers and parents to nurture this. As ambassadors for the future it is paramount that they understand the impact, both negative and positive, we can have on our environment.”

 

The series is also available via the Eco Centre’s website for download in high resolution and supporting teacher/parent notes and the education team will be working on curriculum focussed resources to support the series in the near future.

This latest project builds on from a series of important coastal research projects undertaken by Edge Hill’s Geography and Geology department. In 2020 the University was awarded £25,000 from the Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) to explore how coastal communities in Thailand can use data to manage risks around climate change.

Sefton Council’s Green Sefton team have set out the ways they are managing the build-up of windblown sand along popular coastal paths.

In recent months around 90 tonnes of sand has been cleared from the path in Southport both manually and using a tractor.

Tractor clearance of sand built-up along the seawall at Southport is undertaken regularly and Green Sefton are working with Highways colleagues to investigate the use of signage to alert people to areas where windblown sand is prone to accumulate.

At Crosby, a specialist Telehandler designed to shift heavy loads, has been purchased to assist with clearance at that location. The most challenging section is the area from south of Mariners Road car park up to the Crosby Marine Lake area. This path was cleared during a scheme in 2018 but since then the natural shift of sand has resulted in the path becoming impassable, in parts, for some users once again.

Green Sefton officers have identified an alternative inland path for this section of the promenade providing access for wheelchairs, prams and bikes along the existing ‘Curlew’ cycle route. Signs are already in place and the new machinery will allow for more efficient removal of sand in the approaches to, and along, this alternative route.

Cllr Ian Moncur, Sefton Council’s Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing, said: “We are incredibly lucky to have such a beautiful and scientifically important natural asset right here in Sefton. It is a special location for our residents, as well as visitors, and our Green Sefton team are working at full capacity to ensure that day-to-day people can enjoy their time spent here. They are also prioritising longer-term development and conservation works to safeguard the coast for future generations to come while providing improved visitor facilities.

“I want to reassure our communities that we are doing all we can to ensure that our coast is accessible and safe for all, while making clear that some of the challenges we face are beyond our control due to our diverse landscape and unique natural environment.” 

Mark Shaw, Sefton Council’s Green Sefton Service Manager, said:

“We face consistent challenges with the issue of sand covering pathways at various locations along our unique 22-mile coastline, and particularly at Crosby and Southport promenades.

“As many of our regular beach users understand, this is a massive natural process that has been shaping our coastline for millennia and will continue to do so for many more thousands of years. It can be exacerbated by windy coastal weather conditions and the development of new dunes as a result of erosion at other parts of the coast.

“We simply cannot work against these natural processes every day and people must expect that paths adjacent to a sandy beach are always going to be prone to some level of sand build-up.

“What we can do, and continue to do, is to undertake regular observation and maintenance to ensure that these coastal footpaths and cycleways are kept as clear as is possible for all users. This work is undertaken both proactively and reactively and as quickly as our limited resources allow. Where this isn’t possible, we work to identify alternative routes.  

“The reality we are facing is that often the sand is returned to these areas just as quickly as we have removed it, and on busy days our small workforce has to prioritises litter clearance and visitor management as it is impractical to undertake sand clearance while these areas are full of people.”

The recent warm weather has resulted in increased visitor numbers to all parts of the Sefton coast. The continued need for Covid-19 measures is having an impact on the Council’s ability to prioritise routine maintenance of its outdoor sites, such as sand clearance on coastal paths.

Mark Shaw added: “We would ask the public to be patient as we try to reach those affected areas and clear the paths as quickly as we can. We are exploring longer-term options to create new paths or alternative routes, increase staffing, invest in more specialist machinery, all while balancing the conservation needs and understanding that significant funding would be required to sustain this activity.”