Plan for action to tackle Sheffield’s nature emergency

Note to editors: this is an extra story from the committee

Sheffield City Council’s communities, parks and leisure policy committee this week (March 11) adopted an 18-point plan put together by a task and finish group. That brought together councillors and officers to work with city wildlife and environmental groups.

The groups involved were Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust, Green Estate and the chair of the Green Space Forum of parks friends groups, and the Eastern Moors Partnership.

Some of the recommendations they made include:

• Action to increase the city’s commitment to give 30% of land to nature by 2030 to 40 per cent.
• Striving for habitats that are “more, bigger, better and joined” in order for nature to thrive.
• A proposal that key officers continue the group’s work by shaping a Nature Emergency Action Plan and make progress on other policies, projects and plans already in motion.
• Building on evidence from the Sheffield State of Nature report and forthcoming South Yorkshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy and priority species lists to set local species recovery targets alongside other partners.
• Noting that high quality, biodiverse, accessible, safe and resilient green spaces are not evenly distributed across the city and often more deprived communities are most adversely impacted by the climate and nature emergencies.

The committee heard from Ruth Bell, council head of parks and countryside, that a new key officer has just been appointed with responsibilities for the issues that the group discussed. Part of their job will be to pull together work across the council.

She said: “We could just as easily have had 50 recommendations, such were the positive actions and people that attended.”

Group chair Coun Marieanne Elliot said: “It is a positive step forward in the right direction and for me as chair I found it a really valuable exercise getting councillors and officers and partners all in a room together with that shared understanding and looking at land management and nature recovery.”

She mentioned that not including representatives of the city’s rivers and blue network had been an omission that needs correction in future.