Grounds Maintenance, Landscape Creation, Arboriculture, Sports Surfacing, Parks management, IOS Managing Safely Training, Ecology & Biodiversity, Grass cutting, Horticulture, Street Cleaning, Soft Landscaping, Hard Landscaping
idverde provides a wide range of green services, including grounds maintenance, landscape creation, and advice services, to both private and public sectors across the UK.
idverde’s Bromley Parks contract has become our latest contract to sport the British Hedgehog Preservation Society‘s stickers to remind our colleagues to be hedgehog aware when carrying out their duties.
In 2016 the hedgehog was voted Britain’s favourite mammal in a public vote by the Royal Society of Biology. Unfortunately, despite this, they are in steep decline. Estimates place the current UK population at around 1 million, down from 30 million just 70 years ago. The reasons are mixed: habitat loss, roadkill, use of pesticides, and lack of connectivity between areas of habitat, particularly gardens, all combine to make the hedgehog’s story a troubling one.
As the London Borough of Bromley’s contracted grounds maintenance and parks management partner idverde works regularly with various stakeholders to ensure that habitats are managed well for biodiversity. This includes species surveys. Hedgehogs are however particularly vulnerable to injury from strimmers and brushcutters when hibernating and nesting in undergrowth. As part of our commitment to provide training to all of our operational staff in biodiversity, we have also liaised with the British Hedgehog Preservation Society to have all of our strimmers and brushcutters in Bromley branded with hedgehog warning stickers. These stickers will remind our colleagues to check for signs of hedgehogs and other ground-dwelling mammals before commencing work.
Fay Vass, Chief Executive, British Hedgehog Preservation Society thanked idverde for their commitment to protecting hedgehogs in Bromley, saying: “We have been delighted at the response to this campaign and thank idverde for getting involved. We hope that it will save many hedgehogs and would encourage gardeners and landlords to help further by ensuring that there is easy access in and out of gardens too – a 13 x 13cm hole at the bottom of boundary fences and walls will create a hedgehog highway that will help hedgehogs get around your neighbourhood.”
