Column: Talking Politics with Coun Jane Scullion - Nature is important for our physical and mental health

The focus will be on restoring degraded peat moorlands and creating green corridors to help wildlife move between the industrial heartlands of West Yorkshire and the moors that define our landscape. Pictured is a twite, our own local rare bird.

Last week I took part in Natural England’s launch of six new nature recovery projects across the country. The projects will help to manage flooding risks, improve carbon storage, and build better habitats for wildlife, like our own local rare bird, the twite (I’ve never seen one yet, but I live in hope).

Here the focus will be on restoring degraded peat moorlands and creating green corridors to help wildlife move between the industrial heartlands of West Yorkshire and the moors that define our landscape. I’m a great supporter of nature and I was pleased to see the new nature reserve at Brearley Fields taking shape and, after the recent heavy downpours, starting to act as a store for potential floodwaters. Once trees are planted it will be a real haven for birds and other wetland wildlife. I look forward to children from local primary schools across the borough visiting to see wildlife up close. We now know that nature is important for our physical and mental health. We know that we care a lot about the cleanliness of our rivers in Calderdale: we want to see an end to the disgrace of sewage discharges by the water companies.

But as well as nature recovery I also want us to focus on human recovery here in Calderdale. As a council we need to ensure that we prioritise both. Post-pandemic we now realise that there are still a lot of people who need support. There are children whose education suffered who need help to catch up, there are people wrestling with health issues because they are waiting for delayed treatment, there are businesses that just couldn’t survive, and the cost-of-living crisis means that there are families with children who are really struggling now to make ends meet.

That’s why we are working with our great local community organisations to prioritise the Calderdale Healthy Holidays programmes. We have 29 Healthy Holidays providers working from 40 venues across Calderdale this summer with free healthy meals. There’s a huge range of activities on offer with some specific sessions for teenagers and children with Special Educational Needs. There are approximately 9,000 children on free school meals in Calderdale who are eligible to attend the sessions. Parents can still book here: https://healthyholidays.calderdale.gov.uk

That’s the kind of place that we are trying to create here in Calderdale, a place where the planet matters, and children matter too.