Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 17 July 2019.
I do welcome all those initiatives by the Welsh Government, and I know that they will help pollinators, but there are other things that can be done. We only have to open our eyes and look around the cities, the towns and the villages, and we can see an abundance of manicured, green, sterile spaces alongside roads and parks and on land surrounding public buildings, like hospitals, schools and offices. I'm sure that, if those areas were well managed, they'd all add up to a substantial amount of habitat that could be helping our pollinators thrive. Cutting grass less frequently would help significantly and allow wild flowers to grow. It's cheap, it's effective, but it also would save the local authorities money. In Holland, they've gone a step further, and they've planted flowers on the rooftops of bus stops, as an example, so we could look at roof space on other buildings. So, what actions are the Welsh Government currently taking to encourage public sector bodies to adopt pollinator-friendly policies when it comes to managing the land around their buildings and the land that they are responsible for?