A 29-year-old is on a mission to transform the UK’s alleyways into “miniature wildlife corridors” after realising the “grey and drab” lanes were negatively impacting her mental health.
Flora Beverley founded the Pollinator Pathways Project in Bristol two years ago after Epstein Barr Virus, a chronic illness, left her unable to spend as much time in nature.
Usually an ultramarathon runner, Flora’s condition meant she was spending more time walking in her local community, but found the area “grey and drab” – which had a negative effect on her mental health.
Taking action, she worked with a group of volunteers to tidy an alley in Knowle, south Bristol, clearing waste including drug paraphernalia, broken bottles and burnt mattresses and replacing them with colourful murals, solar-powered street lighting and planters for flowers.
Since her first alleyway, Flora has not looked back and now hopes to create a national movement to clear up the UK’s alleyways and create space for nature and the community.
“Children and parents going to school and work are seeing the same grey and concrete that I’m seeing,” Flora told PA Real Life.
“If it’s affecting me, it’s must also be affecting everyone else.
“If I can do something to brighten that up, then surely it will benefit not just my health, but also the health and the wellbeing of everyone in that area.”
Flora’s Pollinator Pathways Project aims to connect up existing green spaces in urban environments and create areas that are beautiful and beneficial to the community.
“The goal behind the project is clean up the alleyways and install pollinator friendly plants to create miniature wildlife corridors that are also beneficial for the people who live in that area,” she explained.
Flora hopes others will be inspired to come together as a community to create a space that they enjoy living in.
She believes that everyone deserves to live in a place that will make them happy and keep them healthy.
The project brings together local volunteers to brighten up alleyways, removing litter and painting murals, installing planters and street lighting where necessary to improve safety.
Local artists help paint murals on alley walls and local businesses donate materials or funds for planters.
The murals are to brighten up the space in the winter when the flowers are not growing and they showcase the talent in the local area, Flora said.
“The murals are done on walls that belong to homeowners, either side of the alleyways so for that we requested permission from them,” she added.
The group’s latest alleyway transformation was in partnership with Artisan Landscapes, a landscape design company based in Bristol who do high-end gardens across the south west of England.
“They donated their time, plants, planters, soil and people for the project to allow the whole thing to happen, which we just wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise,” Flora said.
Flora has successfully applied for grants and funding from her local council and even an international charity, the US-based Pollination Project Foundation.
Flora said: “There is a bit of social inequality in terms of access to green spaces.
“Lower income areas have less access to green spaces, and I don’t think that’s fair quite frankly.
“The government should be putting more investment into local communities and funding grass-roots projects, however that looks for that community.”
Public services need to be invested in libraries, parks for children or green spaces in general which are under threat from increased housing plans, she said.
“It is not really about alleyways, that’s just what we have done in this area,” she said.
“It is about funding communities, and they can create the area that they need.”
The team’s latest pot of funding has gone towards putting in solar powered, motion sensor lights, which have particularly helped the area’s elderly community.
Flora said that volunteering in her community has massively improved her mental health and said it is benefiting the community as well.
“Neighbours are meeting each other for the first time when they come and do the volunteer days which is such a lovely experience, especially in a major city,” she said.
“I’m so pleased to say that at least in alleyways we’ve done so far, people have taken care of it.
“It’s brilliant, where there needs watering, the people who live there will water it – where the murals need to be topped up, the artists will come and top that up.
“The last thing they want to see is their own hard work undone. So, people are taking care of it.”
Flora has completed three alleyways so far, with two in the process.
She shared footage of one of her transformations which showed how her team of volunteers cleared away litter or fly-tipping.
The volunteers installed pollinator-friendly plants that will soon bloom and attract butterflies, bees and other insects.
“The reaction to this video has been crazy, it has gone a bit viral,” Flora said.
She has been blown away by the positive response her video has received and said she never expected such a reaction.
She is hopeful that the people the video has reached have been inspired to create something similar within their own communities.
“I think people have also realised through me sharing this project that this isn’t something that you have to spend your entire life doing,” Flora said.
“This is something you can just do with your neighbours over a weekend and that kind of accessibility is what I really want to share and what I want to enable other people to do.
“So, if you’re inspired by the project, speak to your neighbours.”
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