Wilder Horsham District 2023 Review

Chloe Harrison

Project Support Officer, Wilder Horsham District

The Wilder Horsham District project is a partnership project between the Sussex Wildlife Trust and Horsham District Council. We work to reverse the decline in wildlife by creating and connecting habitats to deliver a Nature Recovery Network for Horsham District. We are now three years into the project, and there has been plenty to celebrate in 2023.

• Steve - We got a new staff member. Thanks to additional funding from Horsham District Council, we hired Steve Tillman as a new Landowner Advisor, greatly increasing project delivery capacity and ability to offer landowner advice.
• £20,825 – The in-kind contribution our amazing volunteers gifted us by giving 1041 hours of their time across the 33 workdays we hosted this year. Tasks included building leaky dams, removing invasive species like Himalayan Balsam, hedge laying and wildflower meadow creation.
• 80% - The incredible attendance rate at our Parish Council workshops, with 28 of the 35 Parish Councils in Horsham District attending to learn from 18 expert facilitators inspiring project ideas on how to improve their parishes for wildlife.
• 7 – New projects funded through our Nature Recovery Award grant scheme, for a total of around £27,000.
• 7696 hectares – The area of land our Landowner Advisors, Rich and Steve, had advised on, after 122 landowner site visits (across the project’s lifespan, as of April 2023 – the figure now will be much greater!)

None of our highlights would have been possible without our volunteers, the landowners and community groups we work with, Parish Councillors, Horsham District residents, and staff right across Sussex Wildlife Trust and Horsham District Council. This project is one huge team effort – so a huge thank you to you all. 

Here’s to another bumper year in 2024!