Existing work

Warwick District Council has already taken significant steps to halt decline, support recovery, and manage biodiversity in Warwick District including:

• Supporting Plantlife’s annual No Mow May campaign by suspending grass cutting in parts of the District throughout May to allow grass and wild plants to grow naturally and support insects and other wildlife.
• Actively managing our open spaces for the benefit of wildlife including 11 Local Nature Reserves and 6 Local Wildlife Sites.
• Creating a new Country Park, which will be one of the largest green spaces in the district.
• Provision of over 600 bird boxes in our parks, open spaces and cemeteries to provide shelter, food and nesting opportunities for lots of wildlife, including birds, bats, wasps, hornets, mice and a myriad of insects.
• Creation of floating nest rafts in some of the lakes in our open spaces – made from old wheeled bins and popular with Moorhens and Coots.
• Provision of a peregrine falcon nest box at Leamington Town Hall with 24/7 live webcams during the breeding season to see activity from egg laying to feeding and fledging, working in partnership with Warwickshire Wildlife Trust.
• Bird feeding stations and sowing of wild bird feeding crops in some of our parks and open spaces to provide seed and nectar sources for a range of birds.
• Spring bulb planting to create displays of crocus and daffodil in early spring and provide early sources of food and nectar to a range of insect species as they emerge from hibernation.
• Introduction of meadows - flower-rich grasslands left to grow long – into some of our parks and open spaces for the benefit of insects, as well as visual amenity benefits through their displays of colour.
• Creation of habitats for a range of insects from traditional bug boxes and log piles to ‘tree poles’ with holes for solitary insects and even the conversation of an old derelict toilet block at Warwick Cemetery into a ‘bog’ bug house.
• Annual tree planting programme  to ensure that trees lost on Council land are replaced and to encourage additional tree planting where appropriate.
• Member of the sub-regional Natural Capital Assessment Partnership (formerly Habitat Biodiversity Audit) since 1995 supporting the collation of baseline habitat data throughout the district.
• Working with Warwickshire County Council to be a national leader in biodiversity net gain (previously known as biodiversity offsetting) through the local planning system.
• Commitment to enhance the biodiversity of Warwick District as part of the Council’s Corporate Strategy 2030, alongside climate and sustainability commitments.

Delivery mechanisms

To deliver the work identified in the Biodiversity Action Programme, Warwick District Council will use the following mechanisms:

• Focus on delivering work which benefits the target species and habitats identified in this plan (further detail provided in the target habitats and species fact sheets).
• Use of statutory functions such as planning (including the emerging South Warwickshire Local Plan), biodiversity net gain, hedgerow regulations and tree protection.
• Ensuring the Council is compliant with relevant legislation, including the statutory biodiversity duty.
• Embedding biodiversity into Council policy and operations.
• Across team working within the Council to increase awareness of the importance of biodiversity, including training and knowledge sharing opportunities.
• Identifying and securing funding opportunities, including opportunities around biodiversity net gain and other emerging local nature markets.
• Partnership work including working with Warwickshire County Council on the emerging Local Nature Recovery Strategy, working with town and parish councils on emerging Local Nature Action Plans, and supporting other relevant partnerships as and when required.
• Making further modifications to the way Warwick District Council land is managed through the grounds maintenance contract to benefit biodiversity.
• Ecological surveys at key sites to enable funding streams and to assess whether actions taken are being effective.
• Supporting and enabling community led initiatives and/or volunteering.
• Wider engagement and communications (e.g. events, social media, etc.)

Action Plan

To deliver the first phase of the Biodiversity Action Programme, an action plan to 2030 has been developed.

Actions are grouped according to the themes described in section 3 to show how they help deliver the aims and objectives of the Biodiversity Action Programme.

Each action has a start and end date and identifies partners who will be important in helping to deliver the action.

Some actions are discrete tasks that can be ticked off when completed, whilst others require regular monitoring against a baseline, and in some cases an action relates to establishing this baseline. Given fast-moving changes in environmental policy and legislation, it may be that actions become out-dated and require an update to reflect such changes.

Actions are numerous and ambitious to adequately address the aims and objectives of the Biodiversity Action Programme over the 7-year period of the action plan (2024-2030 inclusive). As such, progress on all actions every year is not anticipated, and targeting this would be unrealistic.

However, progress on each action is expected by 2030 (subject to the regular reviews to confirm if actions remain applicable within the context of prevailing legislation, policy and best practice).

A substantial review of the action plan will be carried out in 2027, mid-way through its lifespan, and again in 2030, before being replaced by a new action plan to deliver the next phase of the programme.