Wirral Country Park - the place to 'bee'
It’s official – the UK’s first designated country park is truly the “bee’s knees” when it comes to creating an environment that encourages pollinators to flourish.
Wirral Country Park has today been officially named as one of only 23 places in the country recognised as a Bees’ Needs Champion by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA).
And is if that news isn’t sweet enough, the work of the aptly named partner organisation, Bee Wirral, in establishing and nurturing beehives at an old orchard site in the park will soon see Wirral Country Park’s own honey being put on sale at the visitor centre.
The Bees’ Needs Champions were announced today – July 15th – at Kew Gardens in London at the start of a weeklong campaign led by DEFRA and partners aimed at encouraging and inspiring the public, businesses and farmers to create pollinator-friendly areas.
Bees’ Needs Week, which runs until Sunday, aims to raise awareness of the importance of bees and other pollinators and share ideas, actions and activities that highlight the ways in which people can help them thrive.
Wirral Country Park first became a Bees’ Needs Champion back in 2021 for it meadow management works and this latest recognition in 2025 is a result of the additional projects being undertaken in the park, including extending the managed wildflower meadows at Thurstaston by three acres and installing new surfaced paths.
More elm trees have been planted along the Wirral specifically aimed at supporting the return and proliferation of the White-Letter Hairstreak butterfly. Staff have also created more brick-built barbecue stands in the park in the hope of reducing the number of damaging grassland fires and that can hurt the habitat for many years.
In the autumn there will be works taking place at the visitor centre car park that will include creating metre-wide wildflower borders and managed hedgerows providing a ‘pollinator corridor’, linking up the beehives with the wildflower grasslands, where staff and volunteers undertake meadow walks with visiting schools and other organised groups.
The work will strengthen the role of the Wirral Way as a fantastic wildlife corridor extending 12 miles along West Wirral from West Kirby to Hooton in Cheshire.
The team at Wirral Country Park do the most amazing work. I love visiting the park regularly and seeing now they manage the areas for the benefit of nature, but also for visitors. I am always impressed by the results; the pollinator areas particularly just get better and better. They are so deserving of this national recognition.
