Habitats

Wildlife corridors

Wildlife corridors are often situated in verges of the main thoroughfares of Chorley and play a vital role in maintaining and improving biodiversity.

A wildlife corridor helps to bridge the gap between habitats, which helps to restore and preserve biodiversity and allows movement between important habitats to maintain genetic diversity in wildlife populations. It is important that we support insects at all stages of their life cycle and plants found in wildlife corridors such as docks, sorrels and thistles are important larval food plants. These corridors also provide an opportunity for airborne, pollinating insects to move around by flying from one to another.

To help support our wildlife, grass cutting in these areas is reduced as part of our maintenance programme as it also allows any natural wildflowers within the seed bank to flourish.

We will continue to regularly maintain the verge areas immediately next to the roads or footpaths to maintain visibility and safety for motorists, but otherwise we plan to let nature take its course and give them a helping hand by planting supplementary bulbs. We planted a further 8000 wildflower bulbs in autumn 2024, to introduce greater diversity whilst adding colour and intrigue to these vital habitats for insects and pollinators.

 

image of flowers

Wildlife Meadows

Not only do wildlife meadows bring colour and interest, but they provide invaluable food and habitat sources for insects and pollinators, as well as helping to:

  • reduce Chorley’s carbon footprint
  • introduce more ecological practices
  • add value to landscape and natural spaces
  • attract wildlife back into Chorley

Many of these areas are situated on main routes across the borough, so that they can also be enjoyed by as many residents as possible.

You can view the list of all locations of the mini meadows, wildflower bulbs, established perennial meadows and wildlife corridors in Chorley here. To support this planting the council also only use peat free compost on our own land and planting schemes. 

Why not try creating a wildflower meadow at home?

 

Useful resources

If you've like to get involved at home, here are some useful resources that may help: