Improve grass verge management for wildlife in #rdguk

At the Greater Reading Environmental Network hustings before the local elections one of the subjects which came up was improving grass verge management for wildlife.

I just submitted the following Council policy amendment on this to be debated at the upcoming Council meeting.

If anyone has any feedback, or wants to help write a speech on this or has any ideas about what should be included in a speech please post a comment below.

Council motion – improve grass verge management for wildlife

This Council notes:

· Plantlife and Alan Titchmarsh are running a campaign to get councils to change the management of grass verges to improve them for wildlife and help councils save money: http://www.plantlife.org.uk/roadvergecampaign

· Verges are the life-giving arteries of the town, linking habitats and acting as vital corridors for wildlife to thrive on.

· Verges can be genuine community reserves, people form close relationships with them and there is an army of volunteers who with training can act as the guardians for them.

· When managed correctly verges can support remarkable, diverse collections of species. The good news is that good management often involves simply doing less, allowing the verge to develop and plants to set seed before cutting takes place.

This Council resolves:

· To investigate signing up to Plantlife's Guide to Good Road Merge Management and bring a report back to the appropriate committee on this later in the year.