The decline in insects and birds across the UK has been well documented. Pollinators are suffering due to a decline in habitat. Bird species are declining through the reduction in nesting areas and their food sources of seeds and insects.

Huntingdonshire District Council (HDC) is actively seeking ways to become carbon neutral by 2040. The idea of rewilding our urban areas goes hand in hand with this. Providing more tree canopy coverage across the region will help offset our carbon footprint. Trees provide a habitat for a wild range of wildlife providing both food and shelter.

Introducing areas of tall grass will provide several benefits for insects, birds, and mammals such as shelter and a place to hunt, feed and breed. Reducing the time spent cutting the grass will also reduce our carbon footprint.

To maximise these biodiversity benefits we are rewilding parts of our open spaces where we cut the grass regularly. This regular mowing means these sites have the least variety of wildlife (biodiversity) so rewilding them will make a significant change to this enabling more plants, insects, birds, and mammals to flourish.

Leaving the grass to grow tall enables both grasses and wildflowers in the sward to reach their potential by enabling flowering and seeding. It is important to note that tall grass species are just as important for wildlife as wildflowers.

We currently manage 134 hectares of amenity grass in our parks and open spaces. Our current plans have identified 20.5 hectares for rewilding, plus 5 hectares of tree planting with the underplanting of spring bulbs and long grass.

Our current plans mean that we will be changing the management of 19.3 % of our open spaces.

Social media pages will run notifications of the project and on tree planting sites there will be signs. HDC also published it on their own social media pages several times.

We also circulated information with a number of different organisations including all town and parish councils and local volunteer groups and asked them to share this with their wider networks as well.

We have responded to feedback that not everyone knew about our rewilding, so we will be placing signs at locations where we are proposing to introduce rewilding. These signs will direct people to the council's website to learn more about the proposals using a QR code.

If concerns are raised and demonstrate a clear reason for an area to be excluded, then we will consider adjusting the area to suit the local needs. We will work with residents and other groups to work through any other highlighted concerns.

In the future, we will be informing residents in advance of areas that will be rewilded with signage on site.

If you do have any concerns, please contact the council using the information provided on the signage.

We are rewilding parcels of our amenity grass. Amenity grass covers most of our parks and open spaces and it is the grass we cut on a regular cycle of about 12-15 days.

This is our biggest landholding and least biodiverse land, so changing the management of this land stands to make the biggest impact on wildlife.

We agree that flower meadows do look lovely. However, they are expensive to establish, and they are labour-intensive to manage.

On the other hand, tall grass provides huge benefits to wildlife, including providing seed heads, pollen, shade, areas to hide/hunt/reproduce and areas maintaining moisture which is important for amphibians. As such, the overall gain is very similar.

We will be monitoring our rewilded areas and will adapt our management to support wildflowers where we identify them growing naturally.

We think this is a matter of personal taste.

We also recognise that this change to our traditional management of blanket mowing might take time to get used to. We hope that in future we will all be able to appreciate the colour variation and wildlife value of tall grass.

We are mowing edges and paths through areas to illustrate we are still actively maintaining this land.

Please also remember that a large proportion of our land is still being managed as amenity grass.

Rats are part of the natural environment and are present in most locations. Tall grass and tree planting areas will not attract them any more than existing hedgerows and other vegetation. For populations to exist, a constant food source must be present and tall grass and tree planting does not provide this.

Ticks are also part of the natural environment, but for them to proliferate a contributing host (such as deer) must be present regularly. In most of our urban areas populations of both host animals and ticks, in general, are low.

There will also be mown areas at all locations, so you do not need to enter tall grass areas if you do not wish to.

Rewilding does not stop residents from still being responsible for not dropping litter or picking up after their dogs. Tall grass is not an adequate reason or excuse not to do so.

We will litter-pick areas if needed and before we mow the grass at the end of the season.

The grass will be cut once at the end of the growing season during September-October (exact timing will be dependent on the weather).

Most places will be cut using a machine called a flail towed on the back of a tractor or situated on the front of a ride-on mower. This equipment cuts the grass into lots of small pieces.

In a few locations, we will cut and collect the grass. These areas will be chosen if they are particularly good for wildflowers because removing the cuttings will make the soil less fertile which is what wildflowers need to flourish.

Our in-house Arboricultural Team will be looking after the newly planted trees to help weed and mulch them, keep them upright and renew the spiral protection as necessary.

During the early years, the trees will be mulched. This suppresses weed growth helping the trees to establish quicker.

This type of tree planting (using small trees called 'whips') means that not all trees will get established and a number may die. Once the trees start to get established (about 10 years onwards) we will thin areas out to enable the stronger specimens to grow.

We do expect several trees to die because of weather conditions, pests and diseases and the general rough and tumble of open space use.

These guards are important in helping to get these small and vulnerable trees established. They help to stop animals from nibbling on them, but more importantly, they make the trees visible to people and contractors, so they don't accidentally get trodden on. We will be removing these in 3-5 years once the trees are established.

It is not normal practice to water whips because of the costs involved. It is normal to expect some to fail and this is factored into the overall large number that you plant. However, in extremely prolonged heat, we will water the whips.

We will be putting signs up, in advance, on the open spaces where rewilding will take place.

These signs will link to more information on our website, including a map.

This is not the current objective of the council's rewilding project, which is to rewild as much of our land as possible, which is a significant task in itself.

We also do not have the resources to approach private landowners or have any power to influence them. We are working on a green infrastructure strategy which will include ways to work in partnership with other organisations and landowners.

Rewilding is about improving biodiversity to help address the significant decline in species that is currently happening. Not using machinery will also reduce the amount of fuel HDC uses and thus reducing our carbon footprint.