Plymouth Natural Grid Project gets a Kickstart

Ten young people have started an innovative six month work programme with Plymouth’s newest nature project.

The young people have joined the Plymouth Natural Grid, which launched this summer to help make nature more accessible to residents across the city, through the national Kickstarter programme.

The Kickstarter scheme is a nationwide placement programme for people between 18-24 years of age who are out of formal employment, education or training at risk of long term unemployment.

The new apprentices will be given training in a variety of outdoor and natural skills by our new urban rangers including tree planting, coppicing, woodland thinning, public engagement, dead hedging and invasive species management. They will work across 12 green areas, including Poole Farm.

They are the first of two intakes of Kickstarter apprentices embedded into the Plymouth Natural Grid to begin before March 2023.

As well as learning new skills, the Kickstarters will also play a role in achieving biodiversity net gain targets, a land management approach delivering measurable improvements through the creation or enhancements of natural habitats.

The Plymouth Natural Grid is part of an 18-month partnership project between the Council, National Trust and Real Ideas Organisation and is funded by a £1.2m grant from the Green Recovery Challenge Fund. It is being delivered by the National Lottery Heritage Funding partnership with Natural England, the Environmental Agency and Forestry Commission.

In time, it will create a total of at least 22 new jobs, including five urban rangers, who will work and care for Council and National Trust sites across the city.

The Green Minds team and the Natural Grid team will be working together on sites where there are crossovers, aiming to provide conservation and community engagement skills and experience for the young people.

Find out more about the project at www.plymouth.gov.uk/NaturalGrid