Team Wilder Really Wild Lockleaze

Lockleaze is an urban housing estate in Bristol, BS7. There are a lot of ex council houses, some privately owned, some council owned and some owned by housing associations, including Abri housing association. The area has quite a diverse population, traditionally working class and is known to hold good community events, to bring people together. Like many other wards of Bristol, there are levels of deprivation and crime. Lockleaze sits on the fringe of Stoke Park and a railway line, boasting beautiful scenic views of Bristol and large green spaces with high biodiversity. Many local residents care about the neighbourhood and have a strong will to welcome nature locally, to improve the area for the residents and wildlife together.

Lockleaze Neighbourhood Trust is "a resident-led organisation that exists to support residents to achieve positive change for themselves and their community". They are a small dedicated team of residents, volunteers and staff who strive to benefit the people of Lockleaze. 

Really Wild Lockleaze is an amazing, productive and influential project that is tranforming the many green area's to benefit the community and wildlife together. We will show what an urban community can do to help nature and at the same time enrich our own community."

Housing Greens 

Lockleaze is blessed with many local green spaces between the houses, a post war design that makes sense! These housing greens are used by local children to play, a green space to enjoy with huge biodiversity potential. Houses face the greens, so are therefore very visible and hold huge potential to increase local pride and sense of belonging.

A local resident who cares about nature and saw the potential in improving the green for nature and the community invited neighbours to a community meeting on the green. Together, they listened to ideas and made a plan for habitat creation. It was clear and important that ideas came from the community.

Suggested ideas to improve the greens included: wildflower patches, fruit trees , fruit bushes, herb beds, bulb planting. They also wanted to keep space for local kids to play. Community events were held to add the habitat, also equiping residents with skills to create habitat space in their gardens. Local support and encouragement increases confidence and goes a long way.

Permission had to be granted through the council to do this - as they have contracts to manage the housing greens. 

Adopt a verge model

Really Wild Lockleaze wanted to promote the huge benefits of verges for wildlife and give the community power to make a difference where they live. They focused on a species - the small blue butterfly, which has confirmed sightings nearby, north of the railway. This locally known species appeals and it made sense to create a small blue butterfly corridor between the known sightings and Stoke Park, which is a huge area managed for wildlife. 

A resident who lives on Hogarth Walk was keen to plant wildflowers on the verge, which is located where they wanted the corridor to be and also near the Sports Centre, where a lot of habitat was also being created. 

Local sports centre

Most towns and urban areas will have a sports centre where people come together for sport and other community activities and events. The location of the sports centre in Lockleaze is known to most residents and is situated between the railway lines and Stoke Park - holding huge potential to link to the two areas and expand the green corridor. What an inspiration and influential location! It was also highlighted at a community meeting, that this sports centre held huge potential for wetland and pond areas as the marginal land around the sports centre had a lot of run-off from the sports pitches and buildings. 

Actions for nature carried out:
Pond creation – deeper more permanent than the existing wet areas.
Wetland wildflowers planted to increase diversity.
Tree planting - thickened hedges as well as plating a community orchard and small woodland.
Wildflower meadow planting - an impressive 160 m2! Using Emoorsgate seeds.

All actions carried out were suggested by the community and carried out by the community at local events with help from Eric, the Avon Wildlife Trust Community Ecologist. Ownership and long term benefits of these actions are managed locally and pass on skills to expand green corridors locally when installed in local gardens. Local support, confidence and joy from connecting with nature and doing your bit locally strengthens local pride, biodiversity and creates social connections. 

Residents gardens

All of the comunity work is enhanced when gardens are known to be part of the local ecology. A bird flying over Lockleaze will not know that gardens are owned by different people or organisations! They simply view the area. All small actions for nature make a huge difference collectively and community spirit, social connections and green corridors are nurtured. 

Ways to encourage wildlife gardening at home:
Tree giveaways x250.
Nm Mow May x 124.
236 residents planted 1m2 of wildflowers in their gardens.
How to videos for Lockleaze gardens
Lockleaze wild mile map on website (layers)

Team Wilder is action!