FLORA and the abundance of fauna it attracts will be the focal point of a city car park again this year, and seeds are being sown to spread the initiative across Worcester.

Council staff have sown seeds at Croft Road car park to ensure unused patches of the site turn into a colourful wild flower meadow for the summer months.

It’s the fourth year that Worcester City Council’s Cleaner and Greener City grounds maintenance team has worked to create vivid splashes of natural colour at the car park.

The efforts have proved very popular with residents and visitors.

David Sutton, city council service manager for a Cleaner and Greener City, said: “Bringing nature into the city creates important havens for wildlife, boosting our work to ensure Worcester is clean, green and safe.

“We would love it if someone’s first expression of Worcester as they park in town for the day is to be greeted by this beautiful, buzzing environment.”

Plans are now being drawn up to create similar wild flower meadows at other sites in the city centre.

The initiative started in 2013 when Croft Road car park was reshaped to make way for extra parking and new pedestrian footpaths, leaving patches of earth unoccupied. Instead of simply grassing over these areas, the Cleaner and Greener team decided to experiment by planting them out with wild flowers.

The trial was a great success and feedback from local residents, staff and visitors has been overwhelmingly positive. One local resident said she was “moved to tears” and congratulated the council on having the imagination to transform patches of "waste" ground into such beauty.

As well as providing a charming welcome to Worcester for visitors parking in town for the day, the wildflower meadow will also provide extra habitat for bees and butterflies.

The grounds maintenance team has sown cornflowers, poppies and mallows that will bloom in the summer. Wild flowers have also been planted along parks of the riverside path to make the area even more attractive.

Residents and visitors already benefit from the city council’s car parks boasting high safety standards which have been recognised by the national Park Mark commendation.