A NEW partnership is looking to improve habitats across Cheshire.

Cheshire Wildlife Trust and National Highways have joined forces to deliver a ‘Network for Nature’.

The partnership will see 30 hectares of wildflower meadows created to support the county’s wildlife as part of the trust’s Pollinating Cheshire project.

Hannah Dalton, senior living landscape officer at Cheshire Wildlife Trust, said: “We are delighted to have been successful securing this funding to support our Pollinating Cheshire project.

“The funding will help us to work with farmers and landowners, creating beautiful meadows to support a wealth of wildlife across Cheshire.

 “We are looking forward to making a difference for wildlife by creating new wildflower meadows using seed harvested locally and enhancing existing wildflower meadows, with plug plants grown from hand-collected Cheshire seed grown in our wildflower nursery.”

Cheshire Wildlife Trust’s Pollinating Cheshire project is one of 51 projects which form the Network for Nature programme.

Funding designated by National Highways will look to create and restore areas that have been impacted by activities from previous road building.

Nikki Robinson, nature recovery programme manager for The Wildlife Trusts, said: “We’re very pleased that National Highways is committed to Network for Nature, with a strategic approach to restoring nature and joining up vital places for wildlife to help counter the damaging impacts of previous road building.

“Historic road building programmes have contributed to nature’s decline, fragmenting wild spaces and causing environmental pollution.

"This programme will help wildlife trusts throughout England carry out important nature conservation work, and contribute to a national Nature Recovery Network, connecting town and countryside, and joining up vital places for wildlife, and promoting landscape scale connectivity."

Stephen Elderkin, environmental sustainability division lead for National Highways, added: “We’re committed to significantly improving biodiversity near our road network, and the projects set out by The Wildlife Trust will be a vital step in putting the strategic road network at the heart of nature’s recovery.”

Alongside the Network for Nature project, Cheshire Wildlife Trust is looking to raise £35,000 towards wider meadow restoration work across the county.

To find out more, visit www.cheshirewildlifetrust.org.uk/appeals/meadows-appeal.