Biodiversity

To ensure that the University is one of the greenest, we utilise a variety of organic gardening practices and manage our grounds and gardens to encourage biodiversity. These practices include:

• Horticultural green waste used to produce compost and mulching materials
• Using mulch materials, such as bark and gravel, rather than pesticides 
• Avoiding the use of peat for soil amelioration
• Prunings and felled timber left as habitat piles in woodland areas
• Dead or dying trees left standing as habitats
• Provision of bird and bat boxes
• Planting species that host invertebrates and insects - especially bees and butterflies
• Planting of short rotation coppice willow as an example of energy crops
• Reduced parkland mowing to reduce carbon emissions
• Allowing wild flowers to establish and set seed
• Cutting and baling grassland arisings as fodder
• Keeping bees to aid plant pollination - we have 10 hives at King's Meadow Campus
• Planting drought-tolerant species to reduce need for irrigation

We've seen significant increases in flora and fauna diversity on University Park, but the benefits are especially evident on Jubilee Campus - a former industrialised area that has been transformed into a green oasis.

We have a Biodiversity Management Plan for University Park that sets out a 10 year programme for enhancing the biodiversity of the campus.