Wildflowers to brighten up Reading town centre
Council claim their rewilding programme has been popular with the public
Last updated 10th Dec 2021
Areas of Reading town centre are having wildflowers planted as part of a project to restore, reclaim and protect natural habitats across the borough.
Reading Borough Council is teaming up with Reading Central Business Improvement (BID) who are funding the turf to the tune of nearly £12,000.
Late autumn/winter is the ideal time to lay wildflower turf, which should yield flowers in spring and summer 2022. The project will cover verges in areas such as Queen's Road, Forbury Road and outside the railway station.
The turf laid around the town centre will include varieties of plants that will extend the flowering season and provide a bright backdrop to some otherwise inhospitable traffic corridors.
The Council’s final cut-and-collect mowing across verges and parks is now complete, which is an important part of the rewilding cycle. When grass is strong, it competes out other species. For this reason, the Council currently cuts some sites three times during the growing season for a few years and removes the cuttings. In a few years’ time, it will be possible to reduce this to one autumn mowing.
Cllr Karen Rowland, Reading’s Lead for Culture, Heritage and Recreation, said:
“Our Rewilding trials have proved very successful over the last 18 months – many of our verges looked lovely when they burst into colour in the spring and the extremely positive feedback from residents has been heartening to see. Projects like this, which seek to enhance our environment and biodiversity, also mesh beautifully with our City Status bid and go a long way towards enhancing Reading’s reputation as an environmental leader, regionally and beyond.”
Bobby Lonergan, Business Improvement District Manager said:
“Reading town centre businesses, like many other parts of our economy, have a significant environmental footprint. Supporting rewilding in Reading town centre is one strand of the Green Business Improvement District plan to assess this impact, understand better what is already being done by our businesses and across the town centre as a whole, and to deliver an action plan to work towards Reading Business Improvement District becoming a national beacon of environmental good practice.”
The experimental rewilding scheme - which introduced a new approach to grass cutting in selected locations across Reading during 2020 - has proved a great success and so popular with the public that it has been expanded this year. Some of the best places to see this is along the Basingstoke Road, Portman Road and Lansdowne Road.
A Rewilding review will be carried out at the end of the season and a summary report will go before the Council’s Housing, Neighbourhoods and Leisure Committee (HNLC) in March 2022.