Nature Towns and Cities Belfast

About Nature Towns and Cities Belfast

Nature Towns and Cities (NTC) is a UK-wide programme that seeks to help put nature at the heart of local decision making for everyone’s benefit. Belfast is part of this initiative, backed by £850,514 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund (link opens in new window).

Our NTC project, Breaking Through Barriers to Connect People and Nature is being delivered in partnership with Ulster Wildlife until July 2028. Together, we want to make Belfast's urban spaces greener, improve community connections, and help the city adapt to climate change.

This is a planning project to figure out our current situation, our future goals, and how to reach them. It will not fund construction work like building new parks. Instead, it focuses on training, upskilling, and building partnerships.

The project has six main areas of work:

• Supporting Community Action: Working with local people to build skills and capacity to get involved
• Approaches to Urban Greening: Finding ways to bring more nature into the built environment
• Nature and Climate support: Learn how our parks and open spaces can be managed to support wildlife and tackle climate challenges
• Data led thinking: Assess the data we have available to make smart decisions.
• Ongoing sustainability: Investigating funding opportunities and methods to sustain ongoing and future work
• Getting ready for Biodiversity Net Gain: how could we implement this approach to planning

You can find out about about biodiversity net gain on the GOV.uk website (link opens in new window).  

How can I take part?

Residents, community groups and organisations are welcome to get involved. 

You can sign up to our emails to stay up to date with our Nature Towns and Cities projects.

You can also email [email protected] to tell us about yourself, your organisation or group.