The Telford & Wrekin Council Environment Scrutiny Committee will meet on 29 April 2026 to review the area’s new strategy for protecting wildlife and improving local green spaces. The meeting, which takes place at 6:00 pm in the Council Chamber at Southwater One, will focus on the recently adopted Local Nature Recovery Strategy (LNRS) and the Biodiversity Duty Monitoring Report for 2025.
The LNRS was formally adopted in March 2026 following a large public consultation that gathered 3,782 comments from 843 residents. Natural England praised the plan as high-quality and highlighted the success of the council’s efforts to engage the local community during its development. The strategy outlines 16 key priorities and 51 specific actions, covering areas such as woodlands, wetlands, grasslands, and public access to nature.
The council is also set to review its work on maintaining biodiversity, which includes approving 12 plans that have secured 4.6 hectares of habitat and 1,000 metres of hedgerows. Currently, the borough features 20 designated local nature reserves covering 671 hectares. This provides 3.5 hectares of nature space for every 1,000 residents, a figure the council notes is more than three times the national benchmark. There are further plans to declare seven additional nature reserves in the future.
These environmental initiatives form part of the council’s broader goal to reach carbon neutrality by 2030, a commitment first made when a climate emergency was declared in July 2019. According to Sustainable Telford and Wrekin, the council achieved a 63 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by the end of the 2024/25 period compared to the 2018/19 baseline.
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