Green Spaces for Wellbeing programme launched in Macclesfield

A new, innovative programme offering nature on prescription has launched in Macclesfield.

Green Spaces for Wellbeing helps adults to improve their physical and mental health and wellbeing.

An experienced team of rangers offer friendly and welcoming groups that can help participants to build confidence, meet people locally, discover different interests, practice mindfulness, learn new skills, and give back to the local community.

Working in partnership, Cheshire East Council, the NHS, Ansa, Everybody Leisure and the voluntary sector, first launched the ‘Green Spaces for Wellbeing’ programme in Crewe at the end of last year to support people with physical health conditions such as diabetes, heart disease or asthma, and mental health needs to access the outdoors and deepen their connection with nature. 

Macclesfield residents can now sign up to a 12-week programme, with activities based at West Park, Victoria Park and Macclesfield leisure centre.

The programme includes nature-based interventions including wildlife friendly gardening, local nature walks, mindfulness activities, food growing, habitat management and wildlife surveying. 

GPs, nurses and other health and social care professionals are referring people into the scheme. Individuals are also invited to ‘see how wildness can help your wellness’ by signing up directly through the Green Spaces for Wellbeing web portal. 

Dr Matt Tyrer, director of public health at Cheshire East Council, said: “Getting out into nature through parks and green spaces can be a great way to improve general wellbeing and improve mental health. This social prescribing programme can support people who are experiencing anxiety, stress, depression or loneliness. 

“Spending time outside and connecting with nature and others is good for our self-esteem, self-confidence and helps to build a healthier lifestyle. I’m a big advocate of this scheme as it also helps to reduce health inequalities across Cheshire East and reduces the pressure on our stretched health and social care services.”

Steph Scholes, Transformation Project Manager at Central Cheshire Integrated Care Partnership, said: "In my role working in mental health and social prescribing I have attended the two taster sessions for the Green Spaces for Wellbeing programme in Cheshire East. 

“The sessions were brilliant encompassing all of the elements that are supported in the five ways to wellbeing. I am a massive advocate for holistic and alternative programmes in addition to medical management and feel that this programme suits that perfectly. 

“This programme not only supports members of our community to engage in activities to support green sustainability but also aids with loneliness, isolation and the potential mental health associated aspects of any long term condition. It is able to be tailored to a variety of needs and provides such a sense of holistic wellbeing that any individual would benefit massively by engaging with it."

To find out more and see how wildness can help your wellness, go to: 

council’s Green Spaces for Wellbeing webpage 

...or phone:

01270 685589