Rewilding the urban jungle
Laura Mellor and her family are helping to reintroduce thriving green spaces to her local community with a helping hand from National Lottery players
LIVING in a district of Portsmouth that’s one of the most densely populated in the UK, Laura Mellor was used to being greeted by a sea of concrete when she stepped outside her house.
But green shoots are now showing thanks to the efforts of Laura, her daughters Eve, 15, and Robyn, 14, and their friends Coco, 14, and Lucy, 15. With help from Wilder Portsmouth – a collabora tion between Southern Co-op and the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust (which receives National Lottery support) – they have turned a neglected piece of land near their home into a thriving green space.
When Laura saw an ad for Wilder Portsmouth’s Wilder Futures competition, she encouraged her daughters to enter. “They wanted to breathe new life into a tiny scrap of land by our home called Frances Annie Place,” she says. “It’s part of a disused railway line that was wasteland, covered in litter.”
Laura acted as an adult sponsor, helping the girls enter their plans to clear the site and plant pollinatorfriendly flowers and shrubs. “They were thrilled when the funding of £400,” she says.
As well as clearing the site and planting raised beds, they installed a hedgehog house, a bug hotel and a bird box. Laura has also starting planting along her street.
The success of Wilder Portsmouth has inspired the launch of Nextdoor Nature, a national scheme supported by National Lottery funding as part of the Platinum fund some 200 projects in previously unloved patches across the UK.
Nextdoor Nature is just one of the amazing initiatives made possible by National Lottery players, who raise over £30million each week for good causes.*
Laura, who will be hosting a Jubilee tea with neighbours among their new blooms, thinks the scheme is a brilliant way to mark the occasion. “Without funding, projects like ours wouldn’t be possible,” she says. “It has made such a huge impact on our community, so it’s amazing to think that money raised by National Lottery players will go on to help other projects like ours shoot up all over the country.”