Funding secured for nature to flourish in south

The Housemartin Tower and wildlife pond at Christchurch is in the middle of a housing estate

Ambitious plans to bring nature into urban areas and make it "accessible to everyone" have been awarded funding in Hampshire and Dorset.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund, along with partners Natural England and The National Trust, has provided more than £15m to be spent on "green projects" across the country.

It hopes to attract close to £1bn of future funding to boost nature for millions of people across the UK by 2035.

Portsmouth is one of 40 Nature Towns and Cities to be supported with funding - while Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole has been named the partnership's inaugural Nature Town.

BCP Council, and its predecessor Bournemouth Borough Council, has been developing urban green schemes for many years.

Six years ago, it was selected to be part of the Future Parks Acceleration Programme and given funds to fast-track green projects.

Cabinet member for environment Andy Hadley said there were some really good examples that deserved to have been recognised.

"Our parks operations and countryside teams work brilliantly to maintain and restore our vast natural spaces and this accreditation is a well-deserved recognition of that," he said.

"It's about connectivity and about celebrating what we have but also investing in the green space.

"The Nature Town Cities enables us to do it at scale and to look at our whole area and how it connects together, how we're making sure that people can can get to green space."

He said it was important people had "green spaces to relax, to enjoy and spend some time with nature".

Portsmouth is one of 40 places getting funding from the National Lottery to bring nature into urban areas

The deputy leader of Portsmouth City Council, Darren Sanders, said the funding was most welcome as not everyone in the city had access to nature on their doorstep.

"Portsmouth wasn't built with nature in mind," he said.

"Parts of the city don't have any green spaces at all. We want to try and change that.

"We want to double the number of trees in the city. It's about 9% at the moment, we want it to be 15%.

"We want a greener city, more trees, more people who understand the importance of nature.

"The ability to link nature to people's health and to people's mental health and people's mental well-being, so that we can encourage our children to understand that nature matters and they can make nature important because they're going to be here long after we're gone."

Liberal Democrat Darren Sanders is deputy leader of Portsmouth City Council

Victoria Bradford-Keegan, programme director for Nature Towns and Cities, said they were "delighted" to recognise Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole.

She said it was "rewarding their approach to improving green spaces and connectivity for people and nature across the three towns".

"We're looking forward to seeing plans develop in Portsmouth over the next three years as part of their grant funding," she said.

"Making nature accessible to everyone in the city, improving people's health and community life, and the city becoming more climate resilient."