Over 10,000 hours of volunteer conservation work and a new nature reserve headline the ramp-up in local nature recovery efforts since the borough’s first biodiversity strategy was approved two years ago.

The plan to protect, restore, reconnect and enhance the natural environment was agreed by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council in March 2024, following a unanimous call by its councillors in 2021 to declare an ecological emergency.

Now, two years on, a newly published biodiversity report for January 2024 to December 2025 highlights how that ambition has been turned into action.

Hundreds of new native trees and an extra 14 acres of wildflower meadows will spring up in the years to come, thanks to the council’s efforts with Natural Basingstoke and 17 local nature groups to care for 300 hectares of green space.

Over 500 households have been given free advice on how to make their outdoor spaces more wildlife friendly through face-to-face garden wildlife surveys with advisors in its Green Team.

The borough’s first ‘habitat bank’ has been established, with the council’s agreement. These areas are improved for wildlife, creating nature “credits” that developers must buy if their projects leave nature worse off overall and they can’t make up for the damage on their own land. Having an area like this locally means developers’ money can support habitats in the borough, instead of elsewhere.

And last month the council declared Little Pen Wood, an ancient woodland in the Highclere parish, a local nature reserve, making it the 11th area in the borough to be given this protective status for the benefit of wildlife and nearby communities.

Looking ahead, the council will continue working with partners to deliver the Hampshire Local Nature Recovery Strategy, which it helped to shape by identifying habitats and species in need of targeted action.

And on Tuesday (10 March) next week, its decision-making Cabinet will consider recognising formal rights for the borough’s waterways and starting the approximately 18-month process to grant local nature reserve status to land at Old Down, in southern Basingstoke.

Cabinet Member for Climate and Ecological Emergency Cllr Chris Tomblin said: “I said when we adopted this biodiversity strategy two years ago that we wanted to be a leading council in responding to the ecological emergency, and we are delivering on that ambition.

“More than 10,000 volunteer hours, a new local nature reserve, a pioneering habitat bank and ambitious proposals to strengthen our commitment to protect local rivers all demonstrate how seriously this council takes nature recovery.

“With our partners, volunteers and communities, we’re playing our part to deliver the bold, practical action the ecological emergency demands.”

Growing biodiversity on its own land, supporting communities to improve habitats and helping residents turn their gardens into wildlife havens were all priority actions the council set for itself when it adopted its biodiversity strategy in March 2024.

The council must periodically publish a report that sets out actions and policies it has taken forward to meet its duties around boosting biodiversity under the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 and the Environment Act 2021.

The latest biodiversity report can be read at www.basingstoke.gov.uk/biodiversity-report-Jan24-Dec25