Ms Anne Jones:

Certainly, my views have definitely changed since the citizens’ assembly, there is no question about that. I would have been aware of many things but taking action is another story. I also live in the country and one of the things I decided to do was the No Mow May initiative and my neighbours could not understand. I specifically remember asking why did I not have a little placard which said that this is a biodiversity project rather than having somebody thinking that I was going sort of crazy.

There were others who had said that I had become radicalised so there is no doubt it has made a difference. I am very conscious of the animals, the birds and the nature around me and I have an abundance of it. There is the fear of not weeding my yard, or in fact of weeding it, and not allowing chemicals, pesticides and whatever to be used. Again, that would be strange in my locality because that would not have been the way that things would be done, if I can put it that way.

In the past, many chemicals would have been used and so forth. I am aware of the animals around also but they also do damage. I have a photograph on my phone where a fox destroyed a whole section of my lawn. I could not even figure out what had damaged it but apparently it was a fox because my next door neighbour told me it was.

It is about becoming conscious of the environment around us, of what we can do to enhance biodiversity and to encourage the children around us to get into activities such as neighbours’ children coming out to identify the plants or seeing what is happening. There is no doubt there is a change but we need to keep at it because otherwise it is not going to happen.