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FEATURE A BIODIVERSE CITY


Manchester City’s 80-acre training complex, built on the contaminated land of a former chemical plant, opened in November 2014. The Etihad Campus includes a 7,000-capacity stadium, 16.5 pitches, education facilities and medical and sports science services. Used by the first team, the women’s team and the academy, this visually stunning complex combines modern architecture and thoughtful landscaping. But what makes it truly pioneering is the fact that this top-level sporting facility has attracted a host of flora and fauna to the area through its biodiversity programme.


Sustainability goals This ecological success story has come about due to a seven-year sustainability plan, part of Manchester City’s environmental programme, to improve biodiversity on the site’s training area while establishing a more sustainable maintenance regime.


idverde took on management of the club’s landscaping in 2016, starting work by creating a grounds care structure that worked with the environment.


The sustainability and biodiversity plan also offered the opportunity to adapt the traditional maintenance programme to cater for need, rather than schedule-driven rotas. With this more flexible approach, the idverde team were able to spend less time mowing and more time hand- weeding beds, reducing the need for herbicides and allowing the creation of chemical-free zones across


Wildlife is thriving alongside world-class football, thanks to an innovative land management approach focusing on sustainability at the Manchester City training complex. The club has teamed up with landscape and grounds maintenance experts idverde to successfully promote biodiversity at its state-of-the art Etihad Campus.


the estate. As a result, pollinator-boosting wildflower species such as dandelion, daisy, hawk’s-beard and cuckoo-flower have flourished. This, in turn, has allowed the range of invertebrate species to rise dramatically.


To support this growth in wildlife, idverde introduced a long-grass maintenance regime with a twice-yearly cut, resulting in the estate’s overall area of meadow to increase by a third. The meadow provides significant advantages by creating a biodiverse ecology while supporting native species through pollen, nectar, seed and shelter.


Excitingly, this habitat has attracted a pair of kestrels to move in which hunt the field voles now living and nesting in the grass. A fox has also taken up residence, bedding down in the long vegetation. Other significant meadow sightings include a hummingbird hawk-moth, common blue butterfly, linnet and stonechat. A marsh area around an attenuation pond in the meadow has also led to spottings of snipe and woodcock in early spring, as well as increased dragonfly and damselfly activity.


Welcoming new species Along with the wildlife-attracting meadow, idverde began creating new habitats to support a range of plants and animals. This has included solitary bee nesting boxes, invertebrate hibernaculums, log piles, standing dead- wood and bird boxes. These simple steps have had a huge impact over the last few years.


To monitor and appreciate the full impact of these small but mighty improvements, the site’s ecology is measured regularly by idverde with wildlife surveys throughout the year, when all animal life is counted. These surveys have led to fascinating findings, with local residents welcoming a flush of biodiversity along with the appearance of new visitors to this area of Manchester:


• Three unusual spider species have been recorded at the site recently. Textrix denticulata, zilla diodia and marpissa muscosa are all well outside their known UK ranges, with the latter two spiders previously unrecorded north of Birmingham.


• Hoverfly species chrysotoxum festivum and helophilus pendulus, although common, are believed to be the first recorded sightings in the city, if not the wider county, according to National Biodiversity Network distribution maps.


• The site now boasts a growing population of solitary mining bee species (andrena) with a corresponding increasing number of cleptoparasitic nomad bees, which rely on mining bees as their hosts. Two new site


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