Coldean Lane Wildflower Meadow
It’s not uncommon for people to regret tuning into the news these days because so frequently its negative and we all know that continued exposure to bleak and dismal announcements can lead to poor mental health. Therefore, during my career as a Biodiversity Educationalist I have made every effort I can to explain how we can turn the negative, that is global biodiversity loss, into a positive, which is what we can do about this by creating carefully engineered environments for wildlife locally.
Having worked over the last 25 years to encourage the creation of good quality habitat all over our city, in the run up to my retirement I decided I wanted to make a contribution to where I live, here in Coldean. Subsequently, after discussing the idea with my neighbours and the city Parks Department, we decided to create a wildflower rich meadow in our village.
The meadow has its origins in December 2015 when we planted 5,000 wildflower plugs of local provenance into part of the roadside verge on Coldean lane. These were provided by the Plant Conservation Society (Stanmer) and supplemented with seeds and invertebrates collected with permission from Castle Hill National Nature Reserve. The grassland has been managed in partnership with the Parks Department ever since.
So, it was a true delight to have the site recognised by the South Downs National Park as a local biodiversity hotspot and celebrate this with the unveiling of an informative lectern by the Mayor of Brighton & Hove, Cllr Lizzie Denne on Thursday 19th January 2023. Hopefully this helps to make our little corner of the world a happier and more optimistic place to live.