The National Lottery Heritage Fund today announced a £5million investment in a ground-breaking initiative to create a huge matrix of community-led rewilding projects - improving the lives of people across the UK and leaving a lasting natural legacy in honour of the Queen's Platinum Jubilee. The funding is part of The National Lottery's £22million investment to mark the Jubilee and Norwich will benefit with its own project.
Delivered by Norfolk Wildlife Trust, Nextdoor Nature will give people the skills, tools and opportunity to take action for nature. This could include establishing wild habitats and green corridors, rewilding school grounds, or naturalising highly urbanised or unused areas. The pandemic has demonstrated just how important access to a well-cared for natural environment is to communities across the UK.
Norfolk Wildlife Trust will work alongside communities found along the River Wensum corridor as it travels into Norwich, including residents in the Marlpit, Mile Cross, Wensum, Norwich over the Wensum, and Waterloo Park areas of the city.
This announcement follows swift on the heels of Norfolk Wildlife Trust's recent announcement of their vision to create a new urban nature reserve at Norwich's Sweet Briar Marshes.