Almost one hundred Calverton residents joined a special weekend tree-planting session at the former pitch & putt site at the William Lee Memorial Park on Sunday 12th February.
Calverton Parish Council put forward the scheme to plant up the old pitch and putt site as part of Trees for Climate, a major climate change combatting scheme led by the Greenwood Community Forest initiative and funded by the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The design for the site was agreed following consultation with local people.
The community event followed school sessions attended by St Wilfrid’s C of E Primary School who planted 120 native trees such as oak, birch, holly and field maple. Later in the week, Sir John Sherbrooke Junior School completed the school planting with a further 65 trees.
Nic Wort, Greenwood Community Forest, said: “It was good to welcome the schools to plant, but we also decided to hold a community tree planting event to give local people chance to get involved. I was pleased to see so many people planting over 500 trees on the day. This is another important step in our Trees for Climate programme which will see thousands-upon-thousands of new trees spring up across Greenwood Community Forest over five years.”
A further 400 trees will be planted by a contractor over the rest of the planting season to complete the design. Once completed and the trees are established the new community woodland will be accessible to all.
The Parish Council have also paid for a new access stile. This will give pedestrian access off Park Road through the old Paviours field into the newly planted Wildlife Area. There are plans for additional fruit trees to be planted in the wildlife area and to use fallen trees as seating in the picnic area during the next few months.
The Parish Council would like to thank Councillors Lorraine Brown and Joan Inger for their hard work in bringing this vision to life and hope it will be enjoyed by residents, young and old, for many many years.