Polarised views about positive nature interventions create local conflict. Great Bowden and Quorn, for example, have experienced significant conflict in trying to establish their urban verge schemes. Feedback from Leicestershire nature network members and logs of complaints and reactions to social media posts highlight the need for people to feel heard and included in designed solutions. Leicestershire’s Urban Wildlife Verge scheme provides a strong example of this approach. Piloted in 2020, the scheme involved 81 verges managed by 54 parishes by the end of 2024–25, with reduced grass cutting undertaken at times that benefit wildlife.
Urban nature-based solutions, such as reduced mowing, wildflower verges and edible plots like foraging walls, are increasingly seen as essential for creating climate-adaptive, nature-positive places. Their ecological benefits are well established, but their success depends heavily on public acceptance. Visible changes to public spaces can challenge long-standing ideas of what a well-maintained place looks like, sometimes leading to perceptions of neglect. This can generate resistance and polarised debate, particularly on social media, where competing interpretations can contribute to misinformation and a loss of trust.
This PhD project approaches nature-positive change through a sustainability management and stakeholder lens, exploring how businesses, local authorities and residents can work together to co-create and legitimise nature-positive places. Businesses are increasingly active partners in this work, through sustainability strategies, sponsorship of public spaces and employee volunteering, yet little is understood about how interactions between businesses, local authorities and communities shape the negotiation and legitimacy of these changes, particularly where they are contested. The findings of this project will inform the co-design of locally relevant, feasible interventions that reflect diverse community perspectives.
The project directly addresses the need for research on trust, misinformation and communication, by examining how contested narratives shape understanding and trust itself, and whether co-creation can support more constructive engagement. It will contribute to academic understanding of how stakeholder interactions shape the legitimacy of nature-positive change, and give local authorities, businesses and communities co-created proposals for future implementation. Outputs will include academic publications, co-designed intervention proposals, case studies and practical evidence to support future nature-positive initiatives.
This project has been co-created with and is supported by researchers from the University of Leicester and Loughborough University, and partners at Leicestershire County Council. The successful candidate for this project will be enrolled at the University of Leicester.
Project Aims
- To understand how stakeholders perceive and assign meaning to nature-positive interventions in local places, including the competing values and expectations that can make such interventions contested. This will be related specifically to initiatives that have been applied in Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland with varying degrees of success, such as mowing opt out schemes and pollinator patches.
- To use focus-groups and interviews with businesses, statutory authorities, individuals and community groups to understand the deeper reasons why people respond positively or negatively to nature in the urban landscape and how this can shape future design choices.
- To codesign nature-positive interventions that support inclusive and locally valued nature positive places.
Full Supervisory Team
- Lead Academic Supervisor: Dr Cristina Fona (University of Leicester)
- Academic Co-Supervisor(s): Dr Caron Walpole (University of Loughborough)
- Community Supervisor(s): Samantha Woods (Leicestershire County Council)
Estimated thesis submission: