Sheffield Landscape Connector
Photo: Gleadless Valley Photo by: Gleadless Valley Wildlife Trust.
The INNATURE Demo Case 5 works with a Landscape Connector in peri-urban Sheffield, UK. The focus is Gleadless Valley, a 1950s–60s modernist housing estate built on steep, hilly terrain, close to ancient woodland, a Local Nature Reserve, the River Sheaf and the Moss Valley. The case explores how nature-based solutions can support biodiversity, ecosystem recovery, civic learning and stronger local agroecological food systems.
The demonstrator is led locally by Regather, working alongside the University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, Gleadless Valley Wildlife Trust, Sheffield City Council, residents and community partners. Together, we are exploring how people, nature and place can be reconnected through practical activity, shared learning and long-term stewardship.
The Landscape Connector is not a blank space waiting for intervention. It is a layered landscape shaped over time by woodland management, commons, parish boundaries, allotments, post-war green space, walking routes, smallholdings, river ecologies and everyday acts of care, use and repair. INNATURE will help make these layers more visible and meaningful.
Activities include ecological monitoring, community observation, landscape walks, coppicing, habitat creation, growing, mapping, seasonal gatherings, arts-led conversations and the development of local learning infrastructure. These activities will help residents and partners understand the landscape as a living system, where human and more-than-human life are closely connected.
By making ecological care more visible, shared and repeatable, the Sheffield Demo Case aims to support a landscape culture rooted in biodiversity, belonging, practical skills and collective stewardship.
Contacts: gareth.roberts@regather.net
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