Many residents will know about our group and many have supported us over the last twenty or so years, firstly in our search for land to develop valuable wildlife habitats, then with our massive fund-raising efforts to acquire the land, improve its diversity and manage accordingly. Sid’s Piece at the top end of Upthorpe Road is now Stanton’s community woodland, a local treasure of maturing native trees and shrubs, much changed from its pasture of twenty years ago.
During that time, the adjacent ‘Talbots’, a roughly triangular arable field, filling the space between Grove Lane and Upthorpe Road and Sid’s Piece, came onto the market. One of our main helpers and steering group members was fortunate enough to be able to buy this piece of land (approximately 11 acres), and has since managed it such that it has become a developing wildlife area. Locals have frequently used it for walking and SWWAG have even placed a wooden bench at the top end for people to rest, meet up, and watch the wildlife and the sunsets. This field could easily have remained as a field for intensive farming, along with the many other acres of fields around us.
The owner of Talbots has now made a wonderful gesture, and offered Talbots to our group, to greatly enlarge our existing wildlife area. This can create something far more than we had hoped for all those years ago. Also, it gives our growing village a place for the community to enjoy, a place where our local wildlife population can thrive and where local people can find rest and relaxation in the natural surroundings. Local children can explore, play and make discoveries of their own. But with this, comes more responsibility and greater running costs. Currently, our regular ‘work parties’ cope with the lighter work, and our fund-raising pays for professional help from time to time (mainly chainsaw work in winter to keep the Willow from crowding out all the other species).
Although we have lots of people who occasionally help us (mainly at our annual fundraising event at Wyken) and people who enjoy walking around the woodland, we have struggled to get enough people to join our ‘steering group’, and join our monthly work parties. We would truly love to enlarge the area that we have in order to preserve it for local wildlife and for our community to enjoy, but we feel we need a few more volunteers who can give some of their valuable time to help us make decisions, raise funds, raise local awareness, and carry out light conservation work. We need to give this matter some serious consideration before proceeding, and we hope that there will be others who feel they can help us with this and with our ongoing work. If you have any interest in wildlife, or even if you don’t but have the willingness to help us even in an administrative capacity (we are a charity), then we’d love to hear from you.
Which brings me to our next event! Our next monthly work party is at Sid’s Piece, 10am, Sunday 27th October, and our November date is the same time, last Sunday of the month. Come and lend a hand, or just come and have a chat and a look around. There should be lots of autumn colour developing and perhaps some wildlife to spot. We’ll be sure to keep everyone up to date with our progress. See you soon.
We can be contacted as follows: email swwag06@outlook.com Facebook Tel. 01359 250939
During that time, the adjacent ‘Talbots’, a roughly triangular arable field, filling the space between Grove Lane and Upthorpe Road and Sid’s Piece, came onto the market. One of our main helpers and steering group members was fortunate enough to be able to buy this piece of land (approximately 11 acres), and has since managed it such that it has become a developing wildlife area. Locals have frequently used it for walking and SWWAG have even placed a wooden bench at the top end for people to rest, meet up, and watch the wildlife and the sunsets. This field could easily have remained as a field for intensive farming, along with the many other acres of fields around us.
The owner of Talbots has now made a wonderful gesture, and offered Talbots to our group, to greatly enlarge our existing wildlife area. This can create something far more than we had hoped for all those years ago. Also, it gives our growing village a place for the community to enjoy, a place where our local wildlife population can thrive and where local people can find rest and relaxation in the natural surroundings. Local children can explore, play and make discoveries of their own. But with this, comes more responsibility and greater running costs. Currently, our regular ‘work parties’ cope with the lighter work, and our fund-raising pays for professional help from time to time (mainly chainsaw work in winter to keep the Willow from crowding out all the other species).
Although we have lots of people who occasionally help us (mainly at our annual fundraising event at Wyken) and people who enjoy walking around the woodland, we have struggled to get enough people to join our ‘steering group’, and join our monthly work parties. We would truly love to enlarge the area that we have in order to preserve it for local wildlife and for our community to enjoy, but we feel we need a few more volunteers who can give some of their valuable time to help us make decisions, raise funds, raise local awareness, and carry out light conservation work. We need to give this matter some serious consideration before proceeding, and we hope that there will be others who feel they can help us with this and with our ongoing work. If you have any interest in wildlife, or even if you don’t but have the willingness to help us even in an administrative capacity (we are a charity), then we’d love to hear from you.
Which brings me to our next event! Our next monthly work party is at Sid’s Piece, 10am, Sunday 27th October, and our November date is the same time, last Sunday of the month. Come and lend a hand, or just come and have a chat and a look around. There should be lots of autumn colour developing and perhaps some wildlife to spot. We’ll be sure to keep everyone up to date with our progress. See you soon.
We can be contacted as follows: email swwag06@outlook.com Facebook Tel. 01359 250939