Celebrating One Year of Wilder Horsham District - 2020/21 End of Year Report
By Chloe Harrison
Community Support Officer, Wilder Horsham District
You can read Wilder Horsham District's 2020/21 End of Year Report here: End Of Year Report 2020 21
Set against the backdrop of a global pandemic, it has been a novel time for a project largely focused on on-the-ground engagement to begin work. With project officers Richard Black (Landowner Advisor) and Chloe Harrison (Community Support Officer) coming into office in October 2020, the project began with staff working almost entirely remotely, with key visits to partners, landowners, and community groups also unable to happen throughout the multiple lockdowns.
Despite these challenges and the project’s young age, Wilder Horsham District has already achieved much to be proud of. We have published our End of Year Report 2020-21 to share with you what the project has been up to in its opening months and to celebrate the achievements already made. This report marks the period of April 2020-March 2021, but since the project only began in October 2020, it represents just six months of activity.
We still got out and about despite the pandemic - Henfield parishioners and local ecologists volunteering to help the WHD project.
Although Covid-19 limited some of the activities we wished to undertake, the timing of the lock-down was not as problematic for project delivery as it might have been at a later time. As this was the first year of the project there was a considerable amount to do in terms of setting up the project infrastructure, as well as a significant amount of desk-based work that could still be progressed during the lockdown.
In terms of project infrastructure, in the first three months of operating we established:
- Our grant funding scheme, the Nature Recovery Award
- Financial infrastructures and reporting
- Project logo and branding
- Social media pages on Facebook, Twitter , and Instagram
- Project webpage and blog
- Communications strategy
- Project board reporting and project report cards
And over our first 6 months, project engagement highlights included:
- 11 site visits (all occurring in parts of October and December when the country was not in lockdown)
- 9 partnerships/projects engaged with and joined
- 3 successful applicants granted funding under our Nature Recovery Award, to the sum total of £10,968
- 19 community groups engaged with
- 16 organisations engaged with
- An average monthly Facebook reach of 4,800
- Over 9000 webpage views
Friends of Glebe Field, a recipient of the Nature Recovery Award, beginning the planting of their community orchard.
The enforced period of desk work also allowed the project to make fast progress on producing a draft Nature Recovery Network (NRN) for Horsham District, which was recently published. This is a “living document” that uses available data to map how an effective NRN could be built for Horsham District, identifying not only the core areas but areas of high habitat potential that might provide the connectivity that is vital for Nature Recovery.
For a more in-depth summary of the project’s achievements in our first year, including progress made against our proposed deliverables and the project’s next steps, do have a read of the full End of Year Report - End Of Year Report 2020 21
A Big Thank You!
Everyone involved in the Wilder Horsham District would like to thank all landowners, community groups, organisations, partnerships, and individuals who have engaged with and supported the project. The levels of interest and enthusiasm that the project has experienced have been overwhelming, and we are very excited to see what achievements you will help us to be celebrating in future annual reports.