By Fiona Bell: On Sunday 18th February 2024 on Whiteway Green we held a “Love Your Park” event in which Whiteway Green residents wanted to look after their trees and keep the litter away. On the morning of 18th February, More Trees B&NES kindly agreed to expand their after-planting tree care session at Whiteway Green and join up with me for a “Love Your Park” event.
Supported by Sarah Moore (Ward Councillor & Chair of the Council), local residents and 12 further organisations: Twerton & Whiteway Wombles group, Curo, Blooming Whiteway, Bathscape Landscape Partnership, Bath & NE Somerset Communities & Public Health teams, Youth Connects South West, Student Community Partnership, University of Bath’s V-Nature and V-Clean teams, Twerton Infants and St Michael’s Junior schools, the “ Love Your Park” event successfully cared for the young trees and removed harmful litter.
Whiteway Green was the park chosen by the Chair of the Council to plant 10 trees for the B&NES 2023/24 Community award winners in November 2023.
There were a large number of volunteers to help the two team leaders for the More Trees B&NES work: 10 Duke of Edinburgh students, 5 V-Nature team members from the University of Bath plus 4 other B&NES residents, not forgetting Gordon, Curo’s Senior Arborculturalist and Contracts Manager, who came on his day off (what a star!)
Local “Chief Womble”, Sarah Moore, directed the litter picking volunteers: 4 from the University of Bath V- Clean team plus 4 children & 4 adult local residents.
The results:
3 new replacement trees were planted, one tree was rescued and re-sited, four mini forests were weeded & mulched and 9 bags of rubbish were collected,.
There were several “resident chats” with passers by; tea and coffee flowed, shared with plenty of tree biscuits, brownies; even the visiting dogs were catered for with their own gravy biscuits.
The morning concluded with three further highlights :
First, showing the V-Nature and V-Clean teams the community award oak tree planted for their V-Team organisation colleagues in November. Then a drop-in from Lifetime Achievement 2022/23 community award winner, Penny McKissock MBE, CEO of local charity Southside Family Project, to see the community award trees.
Finally, the wife of Terry Hodkinson came to find the Jenny Willson Community Award tree planted in her deceased husband’s name in November. When she was shown the tree growing happily in the tidied up park and found out that the tree was a whitebeam – she exclaimed that this was the same variety of tree planted in the front of their home,19 years ago! A very special moment!
THANK YOU in big capital letters to everyone involved for their support and encouragement for this event. It is much appreciated and has made a positive difference to a local green space and to the wellbeing of our communities.
What happens next?
Sarah is working with Curo to arrange a collection of larger unwanted items in the park and for a skip to collect residents unwanted large items from Rosewarn Close. The Bath Urban Treescape team plan to return at the end of May with Bathscape Landscape Partnership for a tree-focused event. More Trees BANES will continue to work with CURO and local residents on caring for the planted areas and expanding these where possible.
Further information: Fiona Bell, email: fiona.bell.vc@gmail.com, mobile: 07841 902810.
Fiona Bell (Bath Urban Treescape’s founder and B&NES 2023’24 Volunteer of the Year)
For more see https://moretrees.earth/