The week-long Urban Wild festival, which culminated in a major celebration on Southampton Common on Sunday (June 1), set out to connect the city and its people with nature through creativity, collaboration and community spirit.

The diverse programme had included a launch via the street procession through St Denys on bank holiday Monday and a theatrical ‘interspecies democracy meeting’ in the city’s council chamber on Thursday.

Sunday’s event appeared to bring together the full force of the festival’s vision, with performances, stalls, activities and organisations of all kinds gathering on the Common.

A key aspiration was to help people connect with nature for their own well-being, and to show how such connections can encourage care for local green spaces and involvement in community projects.

“There was a speech earlier by one of the guys from the New Forest and he was talking about [how] people feel overwhelmed about this kind of wish to save the world, and none of us can save the world. But we can all save our home,” said Christelle Blunden, organiser and chair of grassroots community initiative Southampton National Park City, under whose umbrella the festival ran.

“That is effectively what we're doing with Southampton National Park City - we're doing the best that we can on a local level to safeguard our nature and our natural heritage against the powers that would undermine its integrity, and we're doing that as a partnership between all kinds of institutions, the council, ourselves, other voluntary groups, the university, the New Forest National Park Authority, etc.”

Stalls and activities on the day featured groups such as Friends of Riverside Park, Sholing Valleys Study Centre, Transition Southampton, Greenpeace and Friends of Portswood Rec.

There were also storytelling and art sessions for all ages, writing workshops, composting advice, a Kidical Mass bike ride, face paints, and another appearance from the giant crow that wowed crowds at St Denys Carnival, which gently flapped its wings in the breeze from time to time.

Headlining the main stage were “climate crisis cabaret” act Fossil Heads, who describe their mission as “encouraging audiences towards environmental action with our unique eco-political/comic/folk/opera/theatrical songs that put the ‘oooh’ in ‘existential doom’”.

Co-organiser Colin MacQueen, who is involved in the council-backed bid for National Park City status for Southampton, said the vision included connecting all the greenways in the city.

“It's not really about the beautiful parks we have. It's actually about local neighbourhoods, green areas – how to connect those; create passageways for habitat, people, creatures, the whole thing.

“Make the city much more liveable and breathable.

“And in order to get that status, we need to show that we connect with local communities. And so we've … organised this event. This comes under the umbrella of our organisation and you can see for yourself the result.

“We've got people from all around the city, all walks of life, all manner of things that they are interested in, that they want other people to be involved with.

“I think we've provided a great opportunity for connections.”