Osler calls for nature integration in public spaces

Councillor Hal Osler has called for Edinburgh Council's road and pavement resurfacing programme to embed nature into designs.

Today, Councillor Osler got cross party support for an amendment to an SNP proposal to address the climate and nature emergency using 'biodiversity corridors'.

Speaking at the meeting, Councillor Osler said "Liberal Democrats are very supportive of exploring ways to improve the biodiversity of this City and agree more needs to be done to support our fragile eco system and much of that is dependent on having pollinators. It’s not rocket science. 

We need to look at greening our very grey urban environment and giving insects basically food corridors. This would be of huge benefit not only to our environment but we know this can have a very positive impact on our residents.We support Cllr McNeese-Mechan’s call that we work with residents, school groups and local businesses but we believe that the Council should go further. As a local authority we are responsible for the implementation and maintenance of the largest amount of hard standing across City. 

What we are proposing is that we explore ways that we could reconsider this by possibly implementing soft landscaping where appropriate instead of just more hard standing.This we believe would be hugely beneficial for our pollinators as well as a number of other benefits. It would improve the general environment that we all live in and as our climate changes and our weather patterns alter help us to mitigate surface water flooding which we know is becoming an increasing issue. The environment around us is changing and we need to change the way we do things. I propose this amendment."

The full amendment text reads:

"Replaces last two Paragraphs with ...
Council therefore agrees to consider measures that would improve the biodiversity of our urban landscape by exploring the possibility of improving biodiversity “corridors”. This should include, but not be exclusive to, considering putting in soft landscaping when carrying out footpath resurfacing or road build-outs, where appropriate.

In addition Council also agrees to work with residents, school groups and local businesses to investigate the feasibility of sponsoring road margins and roundabouts to convert them to wildflower meadow, with the aim of sequestering carbon and increasing availability of food and shelter for bees, butterflies and other pollinators. Council agrees to receive a report on the above to the Transport and Environment Committee in 6 cycles."

The full text is available at edinburgh.gov.uk