Nature and Biodiversity

Often situated in verges of the main thoroughfares of Chorley, wildlife corridors play a vital role in improving biodiversity.

Wildlife corridors help to bridge the gap between habitats which helps to restore and preserve biodiversity, allowing movement between important habitats to maintain genetic diversity in wildlife populations. It is important that we support insects at all stages of their life cycle and plants found in wildlife corridors such as docks, sorrels and thistles are important larval food plants. These corridors also provide an opportunity for airborne, pollinating insects to move around by flying from one to another.

To help support this, grass cutting in these areas is reduced as part of our maintenance programme and also to allow any natural wildflowers within the seed bank to flourish.

We will continue to regularly maintain the verge area immediately next to the road or footpaths so we can maintain visibility and safety for motorists but otherwise let nature take its course and give them a helping hand by supplementing them by planting bulbs.

We have planted a further 8000 wildflower bulbs this autumn within certain areas to introduce greater diversity whilst adding colour and intrigue to these vital havens for insects and pollinators.