The Community Forestry team had a fantastic year in Burngreave. We ran 35 events including tree-planting, bulbplanting, guided walks, forest schools tasters and some environmental improvements. Over the planting season 183 adult volunteers were involve, while 29 activities involved over 300 young people from Byron Wood School, St Catherine’s RC School, Fir Vale School, Watercliffe Meadows School, Watoto Pre-school, Sheaf Training, Streetworx Young Advisors, Fir Vale Connexions and Limpsfield School.
During the last year (October 2008 to April 2009) Burngreave Community Forestry:
Planted 80 large heavy standard trees of 29 varieties in 18 different locations in Burngreave
Planted 750 whips (small saplings)
Planted 11 fruit trees in 3 locations
Distributed 47 fruit trees to local residents
All year we have been rewarded with keen volunteers who have got really stuck in, often in terrible weather, and who have made our job easy by appreciating the value of trees. We hope our efforts have gone some way towards creating a greener, healthier and more pleasant Burngreave, and look forward to more of the same next year!
Although the tree planting season is over we will still have plenty to do over the summer, starting with a Woodland Bodgers’ Camp in June. This event will give over 200 children from 3 Burngreave schools the opportunity to visit their local woodlands and to try their hand at traditional woodcrafts such as pole-lathe turning, willow weaving and hurdle-making – linking the products we use with the trees that produce them.
If you have suggestion as to where you would like to see trees planted (not just in Burngreave but also in other parts of the city) please visit http://www.sheffield.gov.uk and complete our Tree Planting Nomination form which you will find a link to on the bottom right hand side of the home page. We aim to compile all the requests and use these to investigate new sites for tree-planting over the forthcoming years. For further information please contact Leonie Kapadia, Community Forester on 07976 988 627 or Leonie.Kapadia@sheffield.gov.uk.