Norman
Appearances
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
I got involved from James, basically. He twisted my arm like he does with lots of people. And before you know it, you're part of the group. And it's a really good group. It's got good value. It's really about trying to make a difference to the world. My particular interest is in nature.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
About two years ago, I joined a webinar given by Surrey Wildlife Trust, and one of the speakers there talked about beelines. And I thought, well, is this just about... Beelines? That sounds like a bus or something like that. Well, my first impression obviously was it's for bees, you know, but basically the idea is a very simple idea.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
You cultivate wildflowers and that is for insect pollinators, not just bees, all insects that pollinate. And we've put together a little project in our own village, Betchworth. We called it the Betchworth Bee Line and we had a grant from the parish council to buy some wildflower seed and we offered on the doorstep little packets of seeds and altogether 70 local people joined in.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
And when we added up all the little contributions that people were making it turned out there was 2,000 square metres of new cultivated wildflowers which seemed like us to be rather a lot. That's really good.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
That's exactly right, yeah. And from that little humble beginning then, we were able to build on it. So we join every year in the Great Big Butterfly Count just to see how we're doing in terms of helping insect pollinators. Unfortunately, this year the counts were very low because of the bad weather. But I think that sort of spurs us on, the fact that
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
We know if we don't try and do something, wildlife is going to suffer and eventually we'll be the poorer for it.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
It's this year in particular, I think. Most people have noticed the fact that we have far fewer insects all through the year. Just recently, a lot of people have been commenting on the lack of birdsong around.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
Now, we might think that this year is a bad year because of the spring and early summer weather, but all it's doing is reflecting the long-term decline of wildlife, and on top of that, you get a bad year because of the weather, and then suddenly you realise just how little wildlife there is around you.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
This year we've been quite ambitious. We've taken on, thanks to another grant from the Transition Network this time, we've tried to expand our project from... the beeline, to something which covers and involves the communities of Buckland, Bechworth, Brockham and Box Hill. We came out with the idea of a biodiversity park and basically that is just the landscape in which we live.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
And in that landscape, we're going to try and get community involvement in doing more for wildlife. And it might be as simple as sowing one square metre of wildflower seed like we've got on the table in the hall over there. Or it might be more ambitious. What we did from the grant was fund little starter packs for people to get involved.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
So, for example, we had little pond kits, which is basically a pond liner and some plants to get the pond started. We did the same with bird shelters and bird feeders. It's that sort of thing, I think, that is a very simple thing to initiate, but once you get people involved, then it's the first step. They might then want to go on and do something bigger.
The Planet Reigate Podcast
57: Your Harlequin 'drop-in' feedback, Betchworth’s Apple Day… and more
That's the way we're trying to involve individuals and community.