District Dispatch - 26 July 2023

To mark this, we will be celebrating our beautiful parks and highlighting the incredible work carried out by our parks and gardens team and local volunteers. These vibrant, living spaces bring communities together and provide an opportunity to connect with nature in the heart of our city, towns, and neighbourhoods.

We care for and manage 117 acres of land across the district on your behalf, including parks, gardens, ponds, sports pitches, play areas, local nature reserves and open spaces. Our 12-strong team travel across the district's 303 square miles, from Lynchmere in the north - down to East Wittering in the south, making sure that our green spaces look beautiful. It's also worth explaining that the verges are cared for by West Sussex County Council, who are responsible for pathways and roads.

Significant consideration goes into what we plant; the environment; and the special measures we can take to conserve water supplies. We even place water bags around some of the bases of our trees to allow for a slow constant feed to avoid constant watering. You may also be interested to know that we are gradually replacing some of our tools with more environmentally friendly equipment. These are also less noisy and safer for our staff to use. We consider the environment through everything we do - this even included protecting part of a dead willow tree after it became a home to a colony of bees.

We are also creating naturalised areas across our parks, gardens and open spaces to attract wildlife, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, with food and shelter throughout the year. The more diversity we have in our natural habitats, the more bees, birds, animals and other insects there will be - and so this is a key priority for us.

Trees and plants also play a key role in helping to tackle climate change, by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. They can also reduce the risk of flooding by slowing down rainwater runoff. This is why our Tree Chichester District project is so important. Working with our communities, we have created two community orchards and four mini urban forests. The mini urban forests are located in East Broyle, Pynham Meadow, Summersdale and East Beach Walk, and you can discover community orchards at East Broyle and Kingsham. Two further community orchards have also been planted, one in Selsey and one at our temporary accommodation in Fishbourne. Across the district, nearly 25,000 trees have now been planted - which is fantastic news.

All of our work is supported by our wonderful communities and volunteers, who play a significant role in helping us keep our parks and open spaces looking beautiful. I'd like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to everyone who is involved with this. 

So, next time you visit one of our parks or green spaces, have a look at the work that has been done, and please give our team and volunteers a wave if they are out and about. I know they'd appreciate it.

We are also asking you to tell us what you love about our parks during Love Parks Week - and will be sharing videos on our social media channels. If you're not on social media and want to take part, please get in touch by emailing: publicrelations@chichester.gov.uk

Best wishes

Cllr Adrian Moss

Leader of Chichester District Council