LJMU Biodiversity Delivery Plan 2025-2030 Foreword
A foreword from Phil Vickerman, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Student Experience and strategic lead for Liverpool John Moores University’s Climate and Sustainability Plan. As the university’s representative for the LJMU Climate and Sustainability Plan on our Executive Leadership Team, I am proud to introduce LJMU’s first ever Biodiversity Delivery Plan 2025-2030. The Biodiversity Delivery Plan was commissioned in 2024 as part of our effort to address the climate emergency, and more specifically our institutional impact on local wildlife and the biodiversity value of our estate. The Delivery Plan soon became more than that, seeking to follow a holistic approach to external estate management which considers wildlife, social value and climate resilience. This plan represents a strong and steady commitment to enhance the university estate’s biodiversity value over the next five years, targeting three key themes of habitat quality, green space provision and climate resilience. Furthermore, it reaches beyond our estate and into our community, with the aim of encouraging a wider green and blue corridor through heart of Liverpool that contributes to the National Education Nature Park and the future Local Nature Recovery Strategy for the Liverpool City Region. Our Biodiversity Delivery Plan not only offers benefits to wildlife but to our students as well. By offering numerous opportunities to conduct species surveys it can help them to develop in-demand skills for use in the consultancy, wildlife charity and research spheres; whilst the data collected during the monitoring of this plan will be invaluable in contributing to new and existing research projects around urban ecology and the Biodiversity Net Gain approach. We have already started to make meaningful progress through the installation of new green walls at Byrom Street, hedgehog housing across campus, pollinator friendly planting at Tithebarn Building, and the planting of five native trees across our estate. Furthermore, we have a number of works planned for the upcoming year which will have a high impact across the estate including the installation of permeable paving areas at Byrom Street, the planting of 420 native tree saplings, the installation of bat and bird boxes, and soil improvements near the Education Building, to name but a few. I am excited to see what comes next and welcome the opportunity for LJMU to thrive in partnership with biodiversity.
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