Urban biodiversity

Urban planting and greenspace can be managed to be attractive to wildlife as well as people. Most of the Park and Ride sites around Cambridge city have wildlife areas to enhance biodiversity around the sites.

These areas also make the sites a more attractive place for the thousands of people passing through each year.  Trees and hedges provide visual screening around the sites, while balancing ponds and grassland areas store and soak up rain water .

Management Plans

In 2003 management plans were drawn up to incorporate sensitive management of the wildlife areas into the site management as a whole. 

Madingley Park and Ride
The pond at Madingley Park and Ride is home to the great-crested newt, which is a protected species and one of Cambridgeshire's BAP (Biodiversity Action Plan) species. Reed warblers, wrens, moorhens and chaffinches are among the birds that have been spotted or heard here. The rushes and reedmace that surround the pond need managing to prevent them spreading into the open water areas, which the newts need.

The meadow grassland surrounding the pond is rich in species. There are ox-eye daisy, ribwort plantain, meadow buttercups, redshank, teasels, knapweed, birds-foot trefoil, charlock, dock, yarrow, forget-me-not, white campion, red campion, bush vetch, cow parsley, herb robert and hedge bedstraw.

Around the parking areas a young woodland belt is developing, with hawthorn, hazel, field rose, guelder rose and ash, with some beech. This year we have had some rare city sightings of butterflies at the site – the purple hairstreak and white-letter hairstreak have both been seen this summer!

Trumpington Park and Ride
This site is still relatively young, and the pond and wildflower meadow are still establishing. A wildflower seed mix for clay has been used on the site and the close proximity to the farmland has allowed some arable weeds to colonise and there have been several sitings of a brown hare – a Biodiversity Action Plan species!

Babraham Park and Ride
This site has extensive planting around the perimeter, in a woodland belt. The native trees include ash, field maple, hawthorn and hazel. There is a wildflower meadow area, with an interpretation board and picnic benches.

This dry chalk grassland with its rich and varied flora is particularly valuable as it is now such a scarce resource in the county.

Newmarket Road Park and Ride
This site does not have a water feature, as this would attract wildfowl and birds, and might lead to a problem with birdstrikes in this busy aviation area! However, there is a dense woodland belt around the back of the site, behind which runs along a pleasant cycleway towards the city centre.