The spring update on rewilding at Allestree Park

Thu 11 Apr 2024

Following the announcement of £1.1 million from the National Lottery’s Climate Action Fund, the community rewilding project at Allestree Park has been getting busy.

On 24 March, we held ‘Be a Boar Day’. We had a ‘boaring’ time working with 20 volunteers mimicking natural processes to give opportunities to wildlife. This included copying the way that wild boar grub around in the soil (we were using tools, not snouts!), to disturb dormant wildflowers and encourage them to grow. We want to give a huge thanks to all those who came down and helped with the ‘boaring’.

This has already been a very exciting start to the year at Allestree Park but more is coming in the next few months. There will also be a Wilder Allestree Park Blooming Party which is free for everyone on 9 June 2024 from 10am – 2pm.

If you want to stay up to date with everything that’s happening at Allestree Park, make sure to visit the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust Webpage.

The Derby Parks Team, with the help of volunteers, have been busy installing posts at Allestree Park. These will be fixed point photography posts that the public will be able to use by mounting their phone, taking a photo and uploading it to the internet so that we can compare the same view over time to see how the landscape changes. The posts and technology have been made possible by funding awarded to Derbyshire Wildlife Trust from the Nature Returns programme, led by Natural England, in partnership with the Environment Agency, Forestry Commission and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Wakehurst.

The technology for the posts was developed by Ace Nature. We are running some technology tests with the Friends of Allestree Park over the next 6 weeks and will then open it up to everyone, watch this space to stay up to date!

If you’ve been to the park recently, you will have noticed surface improvements on in the car park and around gates. This maintenance work isn’t part of the rewilding project but will benefit all our visitors. More are planned to improve access for everyone.