An Open Letter to Nottingham City Council,

We are writing on behalf of wild.NG, a Nottingham-based conservation project working to protect and restore nature across our city and other concerned local group and residents.

It has come to our attention that, during the past month, two of Nottingham’s largest and most biodiverse green spaces — Rock Cemetery and General Cemetery — have undergone extensive and devastating clearance works.

These sites are widely recognised as more biodiverse than any of our parks. They function as vital refuges for wildlife within an increasingly fragmented urban landscape. Yet they have been subjected to what can only be described as ecological vandalism.

**The works carried out include:

• Removal of bramble, scrub, and understory vegetation

• Stripping of ivy and ground cover

• Strimming of new growth plant life

• Exposure and disturbance of badger setts

• Felling of dead trees potentially supporting roosting/hibernating bats and also invertebrates

• Clearance of paths and graves beyond what is necessary for access

• Dumping of debris onto grassed areas

• Removal of a native Nottingham heritage planting scheme**

All of this has taken place immediately before the spring season, destroying any possibility of flowering plants for pollinators, removing cover and protection for badger cubs and the feasibility of nesting sites for birds before the nesting season, at a time - that is widely known - for disturbance to be minimised, not intensified. Licenses to undertake any work close to a badger sett are usually granted in the months of September or October.

We understand that this work was subcontracted to an external company. We also understand — alarmingly — that Nottingham City Council did not conduct any site assessments for biodiversity before any planned clearance was signed off.

This raises urgent and troubling questions.

Nottingham City Council has publicly committed to:

• A Bee-Friendly Strategy

• A Wider Wildlife and Biodiversity Strategy

• Policies recognising the importance of urban green spaces for ecological resilience, climate adaptation, carbon storage and community wellbeing

Cemeteries are repeatedly cited — both locally and nationally — as critical biodiversity hotspots. To our knowledge, these sites were meant to be protected and managed with ecological sensitivity, not stripped bare.

So we ask, plainly and publicly:

**How was this allowed to happen?

Who authorised these works, and under what ecological assessment?

Were licenses granted to undertake work around a badger sett?

What environmental surveys were undertaken prior to clearance?

How does this align with the Council’s stated biodiversity commitments?

What was the cost of this external contract?**

More fundamentally, we ask:

Why do citizens and grassroots organisations have to fight for wildlife in our city, when protecting biodiversity should be a basic function of local governance?

Urban nature is not an optional extra. It is essential infrastructure - for pollinators, birds, mammals, fungi, soil health, flood mitigation, mental health, and climate resilience. Once destroyed, these ecosystems cannot simply be “put back” with token planting schemes.

The loss inflicted on these cemeteries is not abstract. It is immediate, physical, and catastrophic for the species that relied on them - and for the people of Nottingham who value these spaces as places of memory, refuge, and connection to the living world.

We are calling for:

**1. A full public explanation of how and why this clearance was approved

This letter is open, because the issue belongs to the public. We invite local organisations, ecologists, historians, faith groups, and residents to stand with us and add their names.**

Nottingham cannot claim to be a city that values nature while quietly erasing its most important habitats.

We expect better.

Wildlife deserves better.

And our city deserves honesty.