Urban Green Shoots

Urban Green Shoots is Cornwall Council’s flagship Shared Prosperity Fund (SPF) initiative bringing increased biodiversity to public open spaces across Cornwall, to help with the levelling-up agenda, cost-of-living crisis and ‘building back better’ from the Covid 19 pandemic.

Increasing biodiversity is intimately interlinked with improving the quality of life for our residents as we know that enhancing the nature-richness of public spaces has far reaching positive impacts on our health and wellbeing and the prosperity of our local area through making it more attractive for business and leisure activity. Beyond this, a greener urban environment also helps us adapt to climate change, providing microclimates that buffer high temperatures giving shade and shelter, as well as providing more sustainable drainage through areas of better soil health and water environment. The project will also improve access routes to green spaces so that more people can enjoy them throughout the seasons.

Through the project communities and individuals will be supported in gaining a deeper connection with nature by creating green sanctuaries that are free and accessible at the heart of some of Cornwall’s most deprived communities that need the benefits most.

Working across the whole of Cornwall, improvements will be made to a wide range of spaces, from closed churchyards and parks and public gardens to housing estates, road verges and urban woodlands.

The project will fund a new urban ranger to work with communities through green gardening groups and other exciting events which will help care for the sites and the nature they contain into the future.

Project funding:

Urban Green Shoots is funded by the UK Government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund. Cornwall Council has been chosen by Government as a Lead Authority for the fund and is responsible for monitoring the progress of projects funded through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly.