Supported by our Outer Humber Officer, Andy Gibson, West Hull Community Hub have embraced Yorkshire Wildlife Trust’s ambition of ensuring 30% of land is in recovery for nature by 2030 on their own site - and in pursuing this aspiration they are also connecting their community to wildlife in relevant and meaningful ways.

Trustees and grounds maintenance staff have adopted plans which commit 30% of their site to functioning as wildlife habitat by 2030 and change is already happening at pace, with a woodland walk being created, the site perimeter hedge line being allowed to fill out and now being cut to a more natural, wavy line rather than in hard, straight lines, mowing regimes being relaxed around pitch edges, and a large area of long grass and wildflowers being allowed to develop to the rear of the site.

Paths through this wild area have enabled people to explore this new grassland and experience the range of plants, insects, birds, and mammals that are now finding a home in this space.

Community involvement has been strong, with a huge number of people turning out to take part in a site litter pick in the spring and a variety of community groups supporting tree planting and habitat-building days. 

Anji Gardiner, Trustee at West Hull Community Hub, described how a simple initial conversation about bird boxes quickly snowballed into a vision for wider change:

“Initially we contacted Andy (YWT's Outer Humber Officer) to enquire about putting up some nest boxes around the site. He came for a wander around in wintertime, and before you know it we’d moved on from talking about nest boxes to looking at how the site is maintained, and all the spaces that we weren’t really using that we might think differently about.

We talked about how the hedgerows along the fence lines are cut, why we mow the areas beyond the pitches so regularly, and then that moved into looking at how can we add something different to this space to create new opportunities for other groups of people, beyond those playing rugby.

We brought our groundsmen, who are all volunteers, into the conversation and Andy was able to help them see how making some simple changes could be a really real rich thing to do; we talked about how there is a lot of greenery around here, and how we can allow that greenery to move in from around the edges, and how we could engage the local community in change, so that nature becomes part of everyday life, with the inclusivity of everybody.

This became a shared vision that we all now work towards. A key thing for us is that we're striving to be much more than just a rugby league club. Since COVID and us becoming an ARFL Community Wellbeing Hub, it's really transformed the way that we see our connections with the community, the opportunities that we can provide, whether it's indoor activities and support or whether it's outdoor activity, either from a sporting perspective or now through the wildlife spaces that we're generating.”