The area to be cleared is about 2.5 hectares
of land that used to be a Victorian/Edwardian landfill site. In
more recent years OCC have rented it out for grazing etc but
have had problems with fly tipping and travellers. They are now
converting it to a community woodland for all to enjoy.
Much clearance has already been done by OCC and a team of
volunteers planted up some of the woodland during the winter.
Although a lot of work has already been done, and the site does not
look too bad from the road, once you start exploring the site you
will still find lots of rubbish that needs clearing.
Car parking is being provided at the nearby
Templeton College (see additional waypoint) but will require
a marshal or two to direct the drivers and hand out parking
permits. It would be helpful if we could have a couple of
volunteers that can be there for 9:30, you will be supplied with a
very fetching fluorescent jacket :).
For insurance purposes OCC require me to create a
list of names and addresses of all people attending the meet. You
can either supply this on the day or if you wish you may email this
to me in advance so that I can start the list off. OCC will not be
retaining this list after the event but have asked me to retain it
for a couple of months just in case of a problems that might
develop later.
OCC will be providing equipment such as gloves,
litter pickers, rubbish sacks etc, all you will need to provide is
a couple of hours of good will and good honest hard work
Liane of the Cache Hoppers has kindly agreed to
organise an event at a nearby pub -
The Critical Mass Cache Bash 2007. I'm sure that some
refreshments and nourishment after all the hard work will be much
appreciated.
The following is an article written by Anthony
Roberts for the parish magazine, which gives a bit of background on
the project:
The first phase of the new community woodland
has now taken root on the field to the west of Kennington Road. A
forest of grow tubes is a monument to all the hard work put in by
the more than 200 volunteers who worked so hard over the two
planting days to get the job done. I would like to say a big thank
you to all those people from Kennington and South Hinksey who came
along on the 21st January and again on the 17th February to dig
holes, plant trees and help shift more than 30 cubic metres of wood
chip mulch and 9 cubic metres of compost to give the trees the best
possible start in life. And I know that we all appreciated the
refreshments provided by the 1st Kennington Guides.
I am also grateful to the Earthwatch Institute, not only for
recruiting the volunteers who worked so hard on the second planting
day, but also for their generous financial contribution which
covered all their costs including the trees and tubes. Thanks also
to the Saïd Business School who have chipped in to help pay for the
new gates at the entrance.
So what next? Well, we're not just going to sit back and watch the
trees grow. In the next month or so David Rees from the Oxfordshire
Woodland Project and I will be putting together another application
to the Trust for Oxfordshire's Environment to fund the second phase
of the project on the east field. TOE have already given us £5K
towards the costs of the first phase, for which we are extremely
grateful, and have indicated that they would be very interested in
supporting the rest of the project. If our bid is successful we can
then start to plan more planting for the autumn.
Over the summer, the Countryside Rangers will be mowing the rides
on the west field (and the whole of the east field in preparation
for planting). We will also continue to remove the vast amount of
rubbish that has accumulated over the years - two skip loads have
gone already!
I will also be writing to all those people who have expressed an
interest in helping to form a Friends Group to invite them to a
start up meeting some time in the spring or summer. We hope that as
many of you as possible will want to be involved in helping to care
for the woods in the future. So if you have not already put your
name down on the mailing list, either at the planting day or at the
consultation, and would like to be included drop me a line at the
address below.
Anthony Roberts
Oxford City Council Countryside Service
Brasenose Farm
The Eastern Bypass
Oxford
OX4 2FF
Tel 01865 715830
Mbl 07850 792 615