Lympstone’s precious environment

Stronger Together: looking to the future of Lympstone’s wildlife and natural environment

Why this matters

Lympstone has a host of amazing groups and individuals working to protect, enhance and manage our natural environment – both in our community and at home. Between us, we’ve built strong partnerships with a range of external organisations.

We are people united by a passion for the joy and intrinsic value of the natural world as well as a fear for its future.

We see the growing imbalance between what we take from, and give back to, our natural world. We understand the challenges we face from climate change including more frequent and intense extreme weather events (like heat waves, droughts, and floods, rising sea levels) and threats to ecosystems and human health. We already experience the negative impact of these things on our own health and that of the natural world we depend on.

When we hear the Environmental Watchdog, the Office for Environmental Protection (OEP) tell us “the government is failing on nearly all its environmental targets risking an irreversible spiral of decline in nature”, we wonder what we can do.

An emerging vision

In January 2025, Wild About Lympstone (WAL) had an idea to hold a ‘Stronger Together’ evening. Our aim was to acknowledge and celebrate the efforts and achievements of the groups in our village who work so hard to look after our local natural environment. We were also keen to explore interest in working together in a more joined-up way, for the future of Lympstone’s natural environment and wildlife.

The beginnings of a community environmental vision emerged. This is a vision of people and organisations throughout Lympstone and the Wotton Brook catchment, working together to create a thriving, resilient natural environment that brings benefits to all.

At its heart is a recognition that flooding, water quality, biodiversity, people’s wellbeing, and business success are intrinsically linked, and that climate change will bring more challenges with extreme weather (droughts and storms) and rising sea level.

Your ideas

We asked for your suggestions and comments on how we might work in a more connected way to better protect and enhance our natural environment.

We received feedback from all those who attended the Stronger Together evening (c.50 people representing our 13 environmentally-focused village groups, including Lympstone Parish Council and Devon Wildlife Trust) as well as many locals who contributed to our public consultation as part of the Lympstone Environmental Action Day on May 17^th.

The ideas captured here are as they were expressed by the individuals who offered them. For ease of reading, we have organised them under the following 7 themes for possible collaborative activities and outputs (see below for full details). The hope was that some of these could be delivered by community groups and partners working together.

1. Enhance the management of existing green and blue spaces (and creation of new areas) for greater biodiversity, health and nature-based solutions and resilience in the face of climate change – towards a full catchment plan

2. Create community spaces for greater nature-connection, health and wellbeing

3. Develop a community plan towards net zero

4. Build greater community awareness, understanding, connection and engagement around Lympstone’s natural resources

5. Create a ‘Developer’s Guide to protect and enhance Lympstone’s Natural Environment’

6. Develop a community process for simplifying and co-ordinating responses to new planning applications and emerging local development plans

7. Create a ‘Homeowner’s Guide to living more environmentally and wildlife-friendly’

What next?

As a first step, it felt important to share this feedback with you – both here (on the village website) as well as in an article in the Lympstone Herald (August 2025).

This is not a suggested plan. It is a raw data document, containing rich and valuable feedback from our community. It is the beginning of a conversation which could be taken forward to develop a draft plan depending on community interest, support and resource.

We hope this information can help inform a range of parish and group activities, such as the development of our next Neighbourhood Plan.

We’d love to hear from any groups or individuals interested in this work…

Do you have ideas for how we might take this forward as a community?

Would your group like to lead on any of these suggested activities?

Would you like to stay connected with this initiative?

Please drop us a line at wildaboutlympstone@gmail.com

Full details of possible collaborative activities and outputs

1. Enhance the management of existing green and blue spaces (and creation of new areas) for greater biodiversity, health and nature-based solutions and resilience in the face of climate change – towards a full catchment plan.

Working with landowners, community groups and external stakeholders, investigate possible new areas of land in the parish that could be purchased and managed by the community for this purpose; also, the opportunity of Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) and SANGs (Suitable Alternative Natural Space). This work will be based on a partnership, catchment-based approach to enable Lympstone’s natural resources to be managed more holistically and sustainably. Key priorities/ suggestions for the parish include:

• Ongoing flood monitoring and protection (Lympstone Flood Resilience Group)

• Ongoing protection and improvement of water quality in the Wotton Brook & Exe Estuary (Lympstone Water Quality Group)

• Plant Mini Forests/ Tiny Forests

• Tree planting (e.g. Woodland Trust Yonder Oak volunteer opportunities)

• Greater links between agriculture and environmental improvement for wildlife

• Wildlife corridors that link areas of the village. Possible walk/cycle routes in these, to Yonder Oak & Woodbury Common

• Create orchards

• Create wetland sites with leaky dams & water meadows

• Bioblitz/ biodiversity monitoring to create a baseline to assess progress/provide evidence to Devon Biodiversity Records Centre

• Change mowing regimes in some public spaces to benefit wildlife e.g. around the edge of Candy’s/ Cliff Field

• More bird and bat boxes – become a Devon stronghold for swifts

• Implement the wildlife-friendly churchyard management plan

2. Create community spaces for greater nature-connection, health and wellbeing

• Creation of a sensory garden off the Avenue (and other spaces over time) for quiet community contemplation, restoration and nature connection.

• Link to mental and physical health professionals in the community and possibly social & green prescriptions via the GP.

3. Develop a community plan towards net zero

• Hold an Eco-fair involving local organisations and suppliers that could help facilitate the goal of achieving net zero in Lympstone over 10-12 years – including more green energy in the village, e.g. solar panels (in the car park) heat pumps, electric cars etc. (Building on ongoing work at the church)

• Talk by Teign Energy Communities.

4. Build greater community awareness, understanding, connection and engagement around Lympstone’s natural resources

• Produce a natural resources and land management map of the parish and catchment, highlighting current and potential community environmental and wildlife action. This could be visible in the community & online; active and updated to reflect progress.

• Create a new section of our village website for environmental and wildlife action – share the vision, encourage action, advertise volunteer opportunities (e.g. Gulliford, Yonder Oak, Railway bank etc) document plans and achievements.

• (On the website), create an online Community Knowledge and Skills Hub that pools our local nature-related knowledge and skills.

• Continue regular Lympstone Herald articles & arrange talks (hosted at the sailing club) e.g. Devon Biodiversity Records Centre.

• Attendance at LPC meetings to ensure close collaboration and partnership.

• Hold more ‘Stronger Together’ events to ensure on-going holistic, joined-up, value-added working between all interested parties.

5. Create a ‘Developer’s Guide to protect and enhance Lympstone’s Natural Environment’

Drawing on Lympstone’s Flood Resilience Group’s existing Developer’s Guide for Flood Risk Management and using local expertise, knowledge and agreed community priorities, this will offer guiding principles for any developer; pre, during and post development in Lympstone.

The goal is for this guide to represent the voice of our community (wishes and desires) and be supported by the LPC. It can be used to advise developers on important local characteristics, local best practice, and used as to enable more robust, pro-active community-developer negotiation. It will cover for all key aspects of Lympstone’s key characteristics, natural resources and ecosystem services including:

• Flooding

• Water quality

• Biodiversity – UK native tree planting, green corridors, % green space left, wildlife-friendly plants, bird boxes

• Health and wellbeing provision

• Climate change and zero carbon housing

• Spirt of place – history, culture, connection, pride, traditions

• Housing recommendations and representations – affordable housing rather than large houses; zero carbon design; water butts; compost bins etc.

• Spaces and proposals for Biodiversity Net Gain and nature-based solutions

6. Develop a community process for simplifying and co-ordinating responses to new planning applications and emerging local development plans

• Engaging with the PC…. Guided by the PC/ community experts in planning, and used by individuals

7. Create a ‘Homeowner’s Guide to living more environmentally and wildlife-friendly’

• Gardening for wildlife – Plant Giveaway events; advice & best practice; dedicated ‘1 magic m^2’; DWT Wild Garden Awards

• Growing more vegetables

• Bee keeping

• Becoming hedgehog friendly to support their return in our gardens

• Erecting swift (and other) boxes

• Reducing your carbon footprint – more green energy

• Reducing use of chemical-based products.

• Ensuring proper disposal of chemicals and pharmaceuticals.

• Regularly checking and maintaining private sewage systems

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