Create 'nature on your doorstep with RSPB

Barratt Homes have teamed up with the RSPB to launch 'Nature on Your Doorstep', a project designed to inspire and advise everyone on how to turn their outdoor spaces into havens for wildlife – whether it be a garden, balcony, or community green space.

Visitors to Nature on Your Doorstep will be able to access how-to gardening guides, easy step-by-step videos, seasonal gardening advice, and an online community dedicated to bringing people together to ask questions, seek advice, and share their successes and learning experiences.

Over the next three years, the project aims to become a go-to place for gardening for wildlife. The project will host everything from customisable content to seasonal advice across the four nations, as well as conducting research into what drives or prevents people from welcoming wildlife to their outside spaces and investigating how to empower local communities to make shared spaces a home for wildlife.

Adrian Thomas, the RSPB’s wildlife gardening expert, said: “Our local wildlife has been an incredible source of comfort over the past year of isolation and uncertainty, and we’re so thrilled to see people wanting to help nature in return. With Nature on Your Doorstep we want to provide a place for everyone to learn from each other, ask questions, and be inspired to do more.

“Gardens can provide a crucial lifeline for struggling species - familiar birds such as the house sparrow have seen their numbers halve in the last 40 years, while 28 species of urban butterflies are down 69 percent in three decades. But seven out of eight households in Britain have a garden, and that is a huge patchwork of potential homes for nature.

"To that hungry butterfly, or that weather-beaten bird looking for a place to roost, just one garden can make all the difference. If we all work together to transform our gardens, we can truly revive our world.”

The RSPB and Barratt Developments have been working together since 2014 to show how new homes can help nature and support wildlife and the housebuilder features RSPB Gold Award show home gardens throughout its developments. Their support has allowed the RSPB to breathe new life into its wildlife-friendly gardening work through the creation of Nature on Your Doorstep.

Mark Cotes, managing director at Barratt Homes North Midlands, said: “We want to empower people to give nature a home, by creating an online community for them to learn and to share their experiences, giving them digital tools which they can then take into the garden to get their hands dirty. This is all about helping home owners to turn their garden into havens for wildlife.”

This project comes after a year in lockdown caused many to rediscover and rejoice in their local nature.

In 2020 alone over 1.7 million people sought advice from the RSPB website on how to make their garden more wildlife-friendly, and in January the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch saw a record-breaking one million people take part in counting the birds in their garden.

In a recent YouGov poll two thirds of people in the UK said nature was a source of solace during the pandemic, with more than half of those surveyed (51%) believing the pandemic has made them more aware of the nature around them. A recent study from Princeton University, USA, also found that gardening is one of the top five activities for increasing emotional wellbeing.

To turn your patch into paradise for you and your wildlife, please go to: rspb.org.uk/yourdoorstep