LETTER: Cutting wild flower meadow is a lack of common sense

Yes the flowers look nice, but the reasons wild flower meadows are so important is to try and stop the decline of the bumble bee and pollinating insects. Without pollination our fruit and vegetables will be in decline, meaning no food on our table.

Anyone watching Country File will have seen how important bees are and how they are in decline.
This year the Wildlife Trust has been trying to raise money to create and maintain wild flower meadows. Its slogan is Bees Need Your Help. They certainly do when Chesterfield Borough Council is in charge.

Recently someone decided to cut the meadow while the insects are still active. It’s a double blow for any wildlife living and feeding in among the grass and flowers. The machine not only cuts the grass, but I feel anything in the grass would have just been chopped up along with everything else, including frogs. Everything gets killed.

If you take a walk up there now the silence hits you, no sound of bees buzzing, nothing moves.

To highlight what I feel is a lack of common sense, the council has an information board telling users of the park the “importance of pollinating insects” and how we have to understand why the grass will not be cut until later in the year, September is a date given. That can be too early. I understand that flower meadows have to be managed but their main and most important reason is the insect life they support. The food, nectar chain is no longer there for the pollinating insects to complete their life cycle.

Dave Cory

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