Residents spending their evenings strolling along the banks of the Mersey near New Brighton are being treated to a ‘blooming’ beautiful sight on Magazine Promenade.

As these photos show, it has been transformed in recent works from bare soil to what it is now – a buzzing wildflower meadow.

Thanks to support from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund, this site is now one of 81 pollinator-friendly spaces now in place in Wirral, helping to support wildlife and connect people with nature. 

Planted with a traditional wildflower meadow mix, Magazine Promenade uses something called dual planting – which is a combination of native annual and perennial plants – this mix helps to create blooms for this year, and years to come.

Included in this mix are meadow buttercups, wild carrot, night-flowering catchfly, and oxeye daisies. Also featuring are foxgloves, musk mallow, yellow rattle, and St John’s wort.

 Each one of these plants plays a vital role in supporting bees, butterflies, moths, and hoverflies – from daytime nectar seekers to nocturnal pollinators.

This site is just one of 15 new sites that have been developed and planted across Wirral in 2025 to help expand the network of pollinator sites.

Before: Just after planting took placeAfter: Magazine Promenade wildflower meadow in bloom

Cllr Tony Jones said, “We started the ground works at Magazine Promenade on 10 March 2025, and on the Red Noses on 21 April 2025. The scheme was funded from the United Kingdom Special Purposes Fund grant, administered by the Liverpool City Region Combined Authority.”

Cllr Sue Powell-Wilde said, “By creating wildflower areas this offers many benefits including boosting biodiversity, providing food and shelter for wildlife and enhancing the beauty of our New Brighton landscape. Wildflowers also contribute to environmental health by supporting pollinators, improving water filtration and even contributing to the development of new medicine”.

“We encourage people when they are out strolling along our lovely coastline to stop and take a moment to look at how the wildflowers areas are developing”.

Images credit: Wirral Council

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