We have planted over 200 willows along the fence by the sports ground called a fedge and dug a path from the gate to the wilderness.
A path has now been laid down from the entrance of the allotment to the entrance of the wilderness, as agreed with the allotment tenants.
We have had a compost toilet installed. It has two containers underneath it, for obvious reasons, and you can pour wood chippings instead of flushing to reduce odour. For some technical reason you have to sit on it, and personally, I found the bushes slightly easier, but women may disagree, and at least it is more civilised.
We have made the following progress so far:
- We have 9 regular members on the steering group, the
youngest of which is 8 years old. - We have had 4 meetings to date, which are generally 2
hours long and have actively planned the volunteer days,
next actions and potential plans for the future. - We have a recording system in place to record details of
people involved - We have had 16 volunteer days, generally running from
10am-3pm, sometimes up to 4.30pm - We have had 3 further planned, which were cancelled
due bad weather. - To date we have had 25 people involved and 398
volunteer hours spent on the project. Volunteers have come from the Time bank and also via networking locally.
The team is currently planning:
- The common area
- Main path
- The composting toilet
- Other paths to designated spaces.
- All the volunteer days and special events for 2015.
- Promoting the project
- Training
Rubbish cleared in most key areas i.e. at entrance and main paths. This has filled one large and two smaller skips in total. There is a lot of buried rubbish which has
accumulated over 13 years including waste from the adjoining allotments, building/household rubbish including white goods and mattresses, clothes, glass,
metals, car bits, plastics, old sports equipment and wire fences. This has involved wheel barrowing any rubbish from the playing field side of the site to the skips approx.
80 metres away. The asbestos is being bagged and is now ready for safe removal.
We have erected a gate and fence at the boundary with the allotment site. This not only provides additional security but also gives us a proper entrance to the site where we will be erecting a notice board in February.
Fire pit – we have built a makeshift fire pit with a BBQ top. This has been used to make refreshments, lunchesand is the central point of volunteer days. And to keep warm! It was used to cook marshmallows on November 8th.
