2023… What a year for Plan Bee!
What did you get up to in 2023?
We asked Kent's residents to include the supporting of pollinators in their New Year’s Resolution. An ideas board was created for people to tell us their resolutions and we included a few to get people thinking how they can help Kent’s pollinators was created. An amazing 153 resolutions were set to help pollinators in 2023!
Throughout the year, we wanted to hear how you were getting on with these resolutions and we had several people add what they got up to. From creating wildflower and orchid meadows to reducing the amount of chemicals used in your gardens, it looks like 2023 was a great year for helping pollinators. You can read these stories in our storyboard below.
Thank you to everyone who took the time to submit their stories and activities. We hope you are inspired by some of the stories. The beginning of a new year is a great time to start planning how you want to help pollinators in 2024. If you are looking for more ideas on how to help pollinators or where to get started, why not check out our idea board or our Completing your Resolutions photo album on our Facebook page.
We always love to hear what you are up to and how you are looking out for Kent’s pollinators. You can let us know by dropping us an email or commenting on our Facebook posts.
What did we get up to in 2023?
We have been looking back and have pulled together some of our achievements:
- 131,510m2 (approximately 503 tennis courts) of lawn was pledged for No Mow May and 272 responses were received to our No Mow May survey. We have published a full report which can be found in the documents section.
- Even more KCC sites took part in No Mow May, including six country parks, more than 450km of road verges in rural and urban areas across Kent, five Household Waste Recycling Centres and nine other KCC sites. Collectively, these sites provided about 300 hectares of wildflower-rich grassland.
- Spurred on by the amazing displays on our Rural Conservation verges, KCC’s Highways Soft Landscapes team have taken up pollinator monitoring of some of their verges using the PoMS FIT survey. It is hoped that over the years, the evidence they collect on wildflower types, pollinator diversity and population sizes, will show that the diversity and number of wildflowers and pollinators increases. This will be through the verges being part of No Mow May and other conservation management practises.
- We have reached nearly 1800 followers on Facebook and our newsletter is now going to 2,200 residents and organisations across Kent.
- We celebrated over 30 awareness days and weeks on Facebook, bringing you more fun pollinator facts and activities with all these available to you whenever you need (head to our photo albums to find all our resources in one place!)
- We celebrated our 10th Anniversary, hearing from many people involved in the action plan.
- AND finally, our proudest achievement this year must be our Bee's Needs Champion Award, recognising our work in helping Kent's pollinators!
How are you getting on?
We would love for you to share your stories and photos of completed resolutions. Simply tell us which resolution you completed, add a photo and a description of how you did it.
This is a public space so please be kind to everyone. Please don’t share personal information about yourself or others. Choose a screen name that does not reveal your full name. Contributions represent people’s own views and not a recommendation or endorsement by the Council. If you would like to know more about how we use and store the information you give us, please read our privacy policy.