31.01.11 Bute Park Woodland Management: Grey Squirrel Mayhem

Fresh from the same site just 48 hours before, staff from Keep Wales Tidy’s Tidy Towns initiative joined five volunteers from LS Healthcare and Katie Tuite-Dalton (Bute Park’s Community and Outreach Officer) and rolled up their sleeves to tackle an area of mysteriously dead and damaged woodland.

The grey squirrel is commonly seen in Bute park often raising excited exclamations from children and adults alike. Sadly, these cute woodland creatures in their high numbers also cause massive amounts of damage to some of the trees in Bute Park. The aim of the volunteers initially was to remove non-native maple species from a section of woodland near Blackweir. Quickly, we realized much of the regeneration had been killed by squirrel damage. To make these safe, we felled several of these trees using skills the volunteers had be trained with over the past few months as part of the Cardiff Friday Mornings Project. The trees, including the maples, were all stacked neatly into a habitat pile.

Chris Partridge said, “We worked very hard today to help improve the health and wellbeing of this beautiful woodland by removing the non-native trees as well as the gnawed trees. However, the damage to further trees in Bute Park caused by our grey furry visitors is likely to continue unchecked”.

29.01.11 Bute Park Blackweir "I Will for Wales"

Map
Saturday's big event saw 90 volunteers from the Latter Day Saints Church and 5 volunteers from the nearby Western Avenue McDonalds being expertly shepherded by 10 volunteers from the Cardiff Rivers Group and Keep Wales Tidy to help clean the areas in and around the banks off the River Taff at Blackweir.

With scenes reminicent, but albeit nearly 20 degrees celcius cooler, to the Great Taff Tidy from last September, this army of plucky volunteers pulled out 80 bags of rubbish and about 1/2 a tonne of various items including 4 shopping trolleys, plastic parts and crates, insulated cables, metal piping, car radio footballs, scrap metal and most memorably a bath.

Here is a slideshow of the photos...



For more information contact Chris Partridge on 07717 412 270 or chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org

Silurian Garden Designs by St. Cuthbert's Primary School

In November, Keep Wales Tidy in partnership with Atlantic Wharf Residents Association (AWRA) and Cardiff Council Parks and Street Cleansing cleared an area of fly tipping on waste ground behind Silurian Place. AWRA have obtained a small grant from Tidy Towns to help develop this site to deter further misuse of this land by bringing together the school, community groups and local residents.

Following a meeting with myself, Bryony Butcher from Keep Wales Tidy's Eco-Schools and St. Cuthberts Primary School, the school spent last week looking at the site to see what they would like to see in this community garden space. Some of their designs are shown in the slideshow below.

Black Horse have already added their support on the ground when we get to that point in time. Although it is easrly days, we are looking to attract community artists into the project to help bring in some of the aspects of the design into mosaics to add further to the final layout of this garden.

For further details contact Chris Partridge on 07717 412 270 or chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org.

29.01.11 Blackweir End of January Clean Up

This Saturday (29th) we are lucky to have a joint event with Cardiff Rivers Group and 170 volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in partnership with Keep Wales Tidy and Cardiff Council Parks Department. We will be meeting at Blackweir Bridge on the River Taff at 10.30 am. The map below shows a rough plan of what areas we hope to cover. Litterpickers have been drafted in from all over Cardiff to supply this massive event. Anyone is welcome to come along and join in, but don't bring your best clothes.
For more information contact Chris Partridge on 07717 412 270 or chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org.


View 29.01.11 Blackweir "We Will for Wales" in a larger map

23.01.11 I Will For Wales and Litter Champions

Some of you may know already that we have just launched a new campaign called "I will for Wales". This encourages people to sign up to a New Year's Resolution that will help care for your local environment and improve the look and feel of your community.

The campaign aims to encourage people to make small lifestyle changes that collectively will have a huge impact on the environment and people's pockets, and will rid Wales of graffiti, chewing gum, discarded plastic bags, dog mess and cigarette butts.

When you sign up, you will be entered into a prize draw to win a brand new Amazon Kindle e-reader!! For more details visit here.

In any case, I signed up and pledged to help take care of my local LNR and also to be a litter champion.
On Saturday, I took a load of my rubber work gloves which were by now pretty stinking to a local(ish) launderette for a service wash in Fairwater, Cwmbran (Map). The litter between the car park and the shops was so shocking that I wondered what other visitors to this small independent shopping arcade must think. I took some photos for my own records.

Very messy

The next day, I was so irked by what I'd seen, I decided to do something about it, even though I didn't live there. I picked up my litterpicker and some bags and set to the site as a newly signed up Keep Wales Tidy Litter Champion. Some of the pictures are shown below.

Before and Afters

Four hours later and the place was transformed. Several people thanked me for my efforts including the local PCSO; I was very pleased. I collected 4 bags of mixed recycling and 2 bags of litter; not bad for a Sunday afternoon's volunteering. So far, the pledge "I Will for Wales" runs true. When you sign up as a litter champion, you get your own litterpicker, gloves, Fairtrade t-shirt, poncho and insurance (just in case) as well as a safety briefing and support from your regional KWT officer.

 Results of my toil.

Full Slideshow

21.01.11 Pentwyn Latch Wood Cardiff Friday Mornings Project

Map
Date: 21.01.11
Time: 9.30 - 14.45
Photo Slideshow
The Cardiff Friday Mornings Project had a tough task today. When we arrived, the ground was frozen and this patch of woods was packed full of rubbish. The margins of the wood alongside the north end of Pentwyn Drive were packed full of beer and soft drinks cans and fast food containers.

Slideshow of the event

The woods behind Glyn Eiddew and Marle Close contained larger domestic fly-tipping. One resident said that some fly tipping had just been removed by the council and the first 5 bags we picked up were dumped since then.

Movie of the collected rubbish



Today we had 3 volunteers from LS Healthcare, 3 from Cardiff Rivers Group, Lucy (Tidy Towns Officer from Cardiff CC) and myself. We collected in total 56 bags of rubbish, 2 broken bicycles,2 broken motorised scooters, pink paddling pool, parts of a stripped down car including radiator and a steering block, carpets, 2 traffic cones, green wheelie bin, 3 car batteries, 3 motorbike/scooter batteries, 2 Christmas trees, 1 tree cutting sign, one large highway bollard, child's tricycle, 1 duvet, 3 tyres and a selection of childrens toys.
There is no Cardiff Friday Mornings Project next week as I will be at the St. Mellons forum.

For more information contact Chris Partridge on 07717 412 270 or chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org

14.01.11 Pontprennau Pond Work

Location: Greenacre Drive just off Heol Pontprennau
Date: 14.01.11
Time: 10- 12
Flickr Slideshow
In partnership with Cardiff Council's Parks Department we helped to rejuvinate this threatened pond habitat.

Overtime, willow trees have grown up in and around this pond which is causing serious harm to its status. This is due to overshading, eutrophication due to excessive leaf litter and drying out. To address these problems, earlier in the week we coppiced some of the pre-marked willow trees, dragged them out of the pond and stacked them for chipping and recycling for compost. In total, five tipperloads of willow was taken away for composting and 2-bags of litter were collected from in and around the pond.

Today's work continued on from the work performed by volunteers on the Tuesday. The rain that fell on Thursday 13th was so fierce, the water levels in the pond rose by almost a foot. This meant the easy access part was tricky, the island was submerged and the trees on the bank were now in the pond.

Today, we had Rhian from KWT (who is also a local resident), John (a Cardiff River's Group volunteer) and 5-vols from LS Healthcare. By the end of play, we had cleared all of the marked up trees ready for chipping and collected another bag of litter.

For more information contact Chris Partridge by Email: chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org

or telephone: 07717 412 270

07.01.11 Chapelwood Coppicing

Location: Chapelwood Coppice
Date: 07.01.11
Time: 10- 12
Flickr Slideshow

The Cardiff Friday Mornings Project kicked off the New Year with a coppice of mature hazel in partnership with Kevin one of Cardiff Council's Community Park Rangers.

This gem of a woodland has some of the finest mature stools of hazel in Cardiff which in combination with patches of dense brambles and some woodbine (honeysuckle) is ideal habitat for the dormouse which is a European Protected Species.

We were tasked today with coppicing some of these stools to ground level which will allow the trees to rejuvinate. This process has been practiced in the UK for thousands of years. Like then, Kevin plans to use the cut material for alternative uses. Next week the rangers will be performing some hedgelaying with the stakes and binders coming from the woods today.

The group over the last couple of months have performed some coppicing so now know their way around the trees and tools, but these were the largest they had cut so far.

With each stool, we cut from stems from the outside to the inside of the stool and we processed each stem as we cut them. The thicker stems were cut into 5.5 ft lengths while the thinner sections were left longer to be the hedgelaying binders.

Stacks were made of stakes and binders and at the end of the morning we transported these back to the truck and tied them down securely.

The left over brash was stacked into habitat piles. Traditionally, these would be sub-separated into pea-sticks (useful in gardens or allotments) and the smaller brash collected into bundles called faggots for firing the ovens at home. In future coppices, it would be great to tie this in with allotment members who would take away the pea sticks back to their allotments.

For more information contact Chris on 07717 412 270 or chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org

10.12.10 Riverside Car Park Clean Up

Location: Riverside Car Park
Date 10.12.10
Time: 10-13.00
Flickr Slideshow
Despite the cold weather, staff from Keep Wales Tidy’s Tidy Towns initiative wrapped up warmly and joined volunteers for a clean-up of the Taff Trail. Volunteers from Ludlow Street Healthcare, local resident Matt and Chris Partridge from Keep Wales Tidy in partnership with Cardiff Council’s Street Cleansing, rolled up their sleeves to tackle overgrown and fly-tipped green spaces near Canton Court.

Seven volunteers and Chris collected two tipper loads of green waste and approximately 15 bags of rubbish including metal scaffold posts, a wooden chair, a shopping trolley which had been left and moved around the car park for weeks, concrete bollards, building rubble and a pig’s head in a bag. All waste was taken away by Street Cleansing which was organised by Lucy Prisk, Cardiff Council’s Tidy Towns Officer.

Chris Partridge said, “The project is going from strength to strength. This week we helped clear a potential greening up site for a small community garden site. These sites were overgrown with buddleia and brambles and collected litter which had blown in and large amounts of flytipping. The coppicing of the buddleia will allow to shrub to flourish next year in a much better state, while allowing us access to all the rubbish which had accumulated there for years. There was still more general litterpicking around the car park to be done which can be tackled on another visit.”

Sessions are organised by Keep Wales Tidy who welcome any volunteers who are available to help out on Friday mornings. Events will be listed on the Keep Wales Tidy website

(http://www.keepwalestidy.org/events), but those interested can be added to the mailing list by contacting Chris using the information below. Existing groups working in the area are welcome to join in.

If you would like to join in or want more information contact Chris Partridge on 07717 412 270 or email: chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org

03.12.10 Taff Embankment and the Marl, Grangetown

Location: Taff Embankment and the Marl, Grangetown. 
Date: 03.12.10
Time: 10- 15.00
Flickr Slideshow
Worked today with LS Healthcare and Cardiff Rivers Group's Dave King in Grangetown. We met in Channel View Leisure Centre Car Park and walked over to the Marl collecting and sorting litter into recyclables and non-recyclables as we went.  We split into two groups, one tackling the bonfire area and the other nearer to the water. The group next to the water found and pulled out loads of rubbish including an old really smelly mattress and an old wooden chair frame. Here we collected 4 large recycling bags and 10 large green bags. On the bonfire area, we litter picked around the field and stacked everything near the bonfire for later recovery by Parks Services. Here we collected about half a tonne of rubbish.
After about an hour and a half we returned to the cars and said goodbye to LS Healthcare.
Dave King and Chris Partridge (KWT) then litterpicked on foot all the way from Channel View up to the Taff Embankment to a reported flytip. This was really bad where someone had a new kitchen fitted and just dumped it there. Moreover, there was a load of cardboard containers for children’s safety equipment and a dog partition for a car. The evidence has been handed to the local authority who will hopefully deal with this shocking behaviour.
Along the way to this we came across several other flytips including one fresh one containing heavy garden paving slabs, soil an another old mattress and other waste. There is no standard vehicle access here so it may not have travelled very far from its original home. There was even a missing top rail to make the flytiping easier for the perpetrators. Dave and I moved the manageable material and bagged most of it for disposal by Parks Services.
We picked back over the path all the way back to channel view.

For more information contact Chris on 07717 412 270 or chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org

26th November 2010 - Hailey Park Willow Removal

Location: Hailey Park
Date: 26.11.10
Time: 10- 12
Flickr Slideshow
This carried on from the work started with Blackhorse's Time2Care volunteers in October (http://tinyurl.com/5tgfw2t).
7 volunteers from Ludlow Street Healthcare and 2 Cardiff Rivers group volunteers joined Gareth (Cardiff Community Park Ranger) to clear the last of the willow from this section of the grassland in Hailey Park.
For more information contact Chris on 07717 412 270 or chris.partridge@keepwalestidy.org