We are always looking at ways to make the Caerphilly county borough a greener and more sustainable place to live, work and visit.

We are proud of our green credentials and one of the ways we can further improve this is by changing the way we undertake grass cutting across the area.

Last year, many of our non-essential council services were paused when lockdown was announced.

As an authority we redeployed staff to allow our efforts to become focused on maintaining essential services and supporting the community at the height of the pandemic.

One of the many services paused was our grass cutting service and this had an unexpected and welcome impact on our environment as we inadvertently created wonderful wildlife habitats and a haven for pollinators.

Many community spaces became a sea of wildflowers and we were even commended by TV personality Iolo Williams.

We want to build on this experience and embed it into how we manage our grass verges in the future. With this in mind, we are proposing that we now look at some of the areas that could remain as nature intended and provide much needed wildlife habitats.

To do this we are asking local councillors to nominate areas within their wards that they feel would benefit from being allowed to flourish during the summer months. These spaces will feature a wooden plaque thanking the residents for allowing the dedicated area to grow into an eco-friendly space allowed to produce abundant flowers, pollen, seeds and habitat for local wildlife.

I hope residents will support this new approach and can recognise the benefits for the environment. I’m sure the bees and butterflies will thank us for it too!