2025 has been a busy year on our Wilder Campus! Here are a few highlights.

The Grounds and Gardens Team have been busy making our compact city centre campus as nature friendly as possible. In addition to our formal gardens and wildflower banks, they are in the process of converting a rather poor lawn into another biodiverse area of carefully chosen plants. There is also an area that has been awaiting work that has been allowed to go completely wild, becoming a wonderful butterfly garden in the summer. Bats, which nest in the boxes on the nearby prison building, have been seen to visit this area in the evenings. It is also home to foxes and hedgehogs, and is likely to become a permanent feature of the campus.

The Johnson Wellbeing Garden continues to be a secluded area that welcomes wildlife and those seeking escape from the main campus for a while.  Weekly “Potter and Prune” sessions allow staff and students to indulge in some gentle gardening, away from books and computer screens. Even those who do not want to get their hands dirty can relax and watch birds and squirrels come down to feed, while in warmer months the newts in the pond are great fun to watch.

Students have also been engaging with the Greenhouse Project. This involves access to our dedicated greenhouse behind Fleming and raised planters in the Wellbeing Garden, enabling them to grow a range of fruits and vegetables, such as raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, onions, carrots and garlic.  We now have water butts to harvest water from the roof of the greenhouse, which will be very beneficial from the spring onwards.

The Student Green Office have been organising litter picks around areas close to the campus. These have been great events, combining a casual social event with a very immediate, positive impact on the local environment.

Members of the Student Green Office have also been campaigning for the provision of more plant-based food in university food outlets. Significant changes do seem to have been made this year, with a good selection of meat-free meals being available in the Food Court.

Our Food Composter has been in constant use this year, processing a total of 2500l of food waste into compost that can be used around the campus, including in the Wellbeing Garden.  The composter has now processed over 9000l of food since it was taken over by the Sustainability team at the end of 2022.

Plenty of stuff happening on campus this year – looking forward to seeing what we get up to in 2026!

By John Hills, Sustainability Projects Officer and Wilder Kent Champion