Natural Networks

The Natural Networks programme can help enable your land to play its part in a revitalised landscape. It’s a great opportunity to deliver habitat improvements for wildlife on land that cannot benefit from other schemes and funds. The project team are on hand to help and can offer the following:

1. Advice. After you register, officers from Worcestershire Wildlife Trust will carry out a Biodiversity Enhancement Assessment, which aims to direct projects towards actions that enhance land for wildlife in the most appropriate way. The assessment involves looking for records of notable habitats and species in the area, surveying the current quality of the land for wildlife and presenting the findings and recommendations for future management in an in-depth written report.
2. Continued support. If you are interested in undertaking enhancement recommendations following the advice, the team can help in signposting towards external grants that you may be eligible for and with any practical enhancement works (either with or without grant support). This can include reviewing grant applications to ensure everything is ecologically sound and helping with practical enhancement tasks, such as helping run work parties for your community (e.g. tree planting, bulb planting, small pond creation, etc). We know  there will be plenty of people and groups wanting to take up our support and so our capacity to help in this level of detail will depend on staff availability and the scale of the scheme proposed.

You can see previous project examples, covering a variety of sites and enhancement works, in our Natural Networks booklet and at the bottom of this page 

The programme is aimed at local Worcestershire businesses, town and parish councils, charities, voluntary groups, public bodies and land managers who would like to help nature but are not able to access agri-environment schemes. 

If you’d like to learn more about how to enhance your land for the benefit of wildlife, please get in touch with our officers Becca or Finley via our short enquiry form for more information.

Natural Networks has been very fortunate to have received funding from many partners in the past. These include the European Union through the European Regional Development Fund, the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, the Environment Agency, the Forestry Commission and Worcestershire’s local authorities.

The Trust has always invested in Natural Networks, benefitting from kind donations from our members and supporters. We're delighted to be once again supported by Worcestershire County Council as the county's flagship scheme for delivering the county Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS). As the LNRS Responsible Authority, Worcestershire County Council has committed funding to Natural Networks for a minimum two year programme (2026-2028) to accelerate the delivery of Potential Measures prioritised within the LNRS. Visit the Council's website to explore Worcestershire's LNRS, and what this means for nature, where you can find the strategy, interactive Local Habitat Map and links to the habitat and species Potential Measures Storymap Collections.