Plantlife’s campaign to stop indiscriminate mowing of roadside verges by councils, destroying valuable wildflowers and habitat, has received national publicity today (BBC web site and Plantlife’s press release)

Road verges need management, but Plantlife say that councils are mowing verges in their care, at the height of the flowering season, too often and leaving the cuttings to lie.  Their survey revealed that more than 75% of the councils contacted cut their verges multiple times over the spring and summer, with not one of them collecting cuttings as part of their routine management.

MMG has supported Plantlife’s campaign for some time.  Our members can help by making a complaint to their council if it happens to a verge they know, and by sending ‘before’ and ‘after’ pictures of affected verges to Plantlife via their web site www.plantlife.org.uk.  Please let us know if you do this – we can put the pictures on this web site as well.

If you know of a particularly rich stretch of road verge, do please let us know now. Last year following surveys, new road verge reserves were set up.