Mowing of young Jubilee tree and wildflower garden on Coleridge Road: the Council continues to ignore its own No-Mow May pledges
There is yet more evidence of the Council ignoring its own advice during No-Mow May. Last Monday, Di King and Sean Rock of 119 Coleridge Road were shocked to discover that plants in front of their house, including a young sapling planted for the Queen’s Jubilee and nurtured for the last year, have been totally destroyed by operated machinery supplied by the Council. Sarah Nicmanis, Cambridge Green Party Prospective Parliamentary Candidate, who met with Ms King and Mr Rock, said “The council’s disorganised approach is making a joke of their biodiversity pledges but no one is laughing. Staff who are used to making grass neat, short and tidy and applying weedkillers need to be retrained to stop this destruction of our local nature. After all, wilder areas are just as attractive for recreation as mown lawn. This week, a fellow Green colleague told me they saw a child walking on the mown area at Cherry Hinton Hall, then stopping and purposefully moving to one of the wilder areas to walk through the long grass!”
Not only did contractors assume it was ok to mow grass verges, effectively ridding Coleridge of its shared public pollinator flowers, but they also failed to recognise that the plants in front of Ms King and Mr Rock’s home were on their own land hence why the plants and the tree had been planted there.
Di King said: “We provided the plants to benefit us and passers-by and to benefit nature, and the tree was planted specifically for the Queen’s Jubilee last year and the Canopy appeal, and we’ve been nurturing it throughout the drought, saving the cold water that we use before we shower and using that to keep the tree alive through last year’s awful hot summer. It flowered for the first time this year which we were very pleased about. There were bulbs in there that have had their heads cut off and shrubs that have been shredded. I am also concerned that the perennials won’t recover as they have been cut right back. Now it looks dreadful.”
Her partner, Sean Rock, added: “It just seems to be reckless, thoughtless, damaging and unnecessary. We need to be respecting nature: what nature does for us, what nature does for the planet, how people get a lot of joy and pleasure from it and how it benefits mental health. Then someone has just come along and used a mechanical machine to chop it down. Lots of effort, love and nurturing was put into that area and it was destroyed in a matter of seconds on private property.”
“It seems to be part of a much bigger issue of a lack of coherent policy and practice on managing the environment,” Di King added, “There doesn’t seem to be a working relationship with Plant Life (the Council’s partner on biodiversity) and there is a lack of following through into practice.”
Sarah Nicmanis agreed with Di King, and said: “In a climate and biodiversity emergency, there must be joined- up thinking between council bodies so they can deliver on their publicly-declared pledges to nature. Also, I am wondering why all this mowing is being done when the Council is strapped for cash?”
Contact sarahnicmanis@gmail.com for more information.
