FAQs

No Mow May is a campaign by the charity Plantlife to let your lawn grow throughout May and provide a carpet of flowers for our pollinators to feed on. Why not give it a go this year to see what colourful flowers appear and the pollinators that they attract? Even leaving a small patch of your lawn uncut will make a big difference. For more information, visit the Plantlife website.

Kent’s Plan Bee team have been busy behind the scenes pulling together many KCC departments, including Highways, Country Parks, Waste and Recycling and our Estates team to put aside mowing some of the land they manage for No Mow May. 

Yes, please do! We want to work out how all our lawns are doing, so even if you have a lawn without any flowers, it will help Plantlife to know that. And by taking part, they will provide you with help and information about how to increase the number of flowers in your lawn for next year.

There are many actions that you can do to support Kent's pollinators. From surveying for pollinators to adding flowers, water and shelter to the garden, there are so many things you can do to help your local pollinators. 

For more information, visit our Facebook page, or any of the links to external resources and websites in the resources panel.

The loss of pollinators is a direct threat to our ability to feed ourselves as human numbers globally increases towards nine billion by 2050. Without bees, hoverflies and other insects visiting flowers there would be no strawberries, apples, coffee, avocados, chocolate, cherries, olives, blueberries, carrots, grapes, pumpkins, pears, cotton, plums or peanuts. And that’s just the first course. There would also be fewer flowers in our gardens or countryside. 

Despite their importance, pollinators are in serious decline as a result of habitat loss, pesticides and climate change. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust reports that two species of bumblebees went extinct in the past 80 years, with eight species, a third of those remaining, now endangered. Butterfly Conservation reports similar concerns, with over three-quarters of our butterfly species having declined since 1976 and two-thirds of our common and widespread moths declined between 1968 and 2007. 

In 2022, the citizen science survey Bugs Matter reported a decline in flying insects by 59% between 2004 and 2021. More worrying was that in Kent this figure was a staggering 72%. These figures indicated a rapidly declining trend in insect abundance nationwide, consistent with research that has shown declining trends globally. 

The main threats to pollinators are habitat loss, climate change, pesticides, disease and invasive species.

Kent's Plan Bee is a pollinator action plan which has been developed by the council to take the lead and encourage local communities to improve the food sources and general habitat for pollinators in Kent. Pollinators such as bees, wasps, butterflies, moths and hoverflies are vital for our food, economy and environment and we must act to reverse their rapid decline.

The purpose of the plan is to:

• make the council a community leader in action for pollinators
• ensure that pollinators’ needs are always considered throughout our work and services
• put the conservation of pollinators and their habitats at the heart of our land management and planning
• make the council a significant contributor to the recovery of pollinator populations.

We also hope that the plan will help mobilise the people of Kent to do their bit for pollinators.