Priority Actions
The plan covers a broad range of natural environment projects focusing on tree and hedgerow planting, improving access to green space for all communities across the West Midlands and developing our wildlife corridors. The aim is to improve these environments in their own right, promoting biodiversity net gain, as well as for all the region’s communities to enjoy. It also covers a number of enabling actions that will need to be put into place in order to ensure these actions are achieved (for example, securing financing and behaviour change initiatives).
The actions that we propose taking fall under the following themes:
- Widening access to green and blue spaces for all communities across the West Midlands, initially focusing on places where there is a deficit of access.
- Increasing tree and hedgerow planting, but with an emphasis on ‘right tree, right place’, to support climate mitigation and adaptation.
- Promoting wildlife corridors and working with natural corridors (both green and blue) as well as those linked to infrastructure projects, e.g. along cycle ways.
- Recognising the importance of the enablers of change and supporting activity around financing and behaviour change that will enable the roll out, impact and scalability of the initiatives in this plan.
These themes, and how we will deliver them, are covered in more detail in the following sections of the document. Each theme proposes a flagship project that the West Midlands Combined Authority will lead, as well as other projects where we will work alongside regional partners. A more detailed breakdown of the actions can be found in Appendix 1.