The story so far
We have 6 storage bays built primarily through the brilliant efforts of Andy and Simon Randerson. Gordon’s Timber were tremendous and donated loads of timber. We got old pallets from Michael Jacks’ construction company and a few others.
Our volunteers turned out on three occasions to clear the park. On the first day, back in November, we were amazed, and really pleased, to find work had started early courtesy of a number of mum’s and their toddlers – who needed the grown-ups? Robbie Barron came with his ride on mower to the last of our three days and, at his own cost, helped clear a huge load of leaves. Together with 2 or 3 visits by Community Payback most of the leaves were cleared. There’s a rumour that Highland Council’s team came out on one occasion to clear the leaves from the fencing bordering Glebe road gardens.
8 residents of neighbouring properties contacted us. We got leaves from 7 of the 8. Two of them brought the leaves to the bays themselves and one other raked up and bagged the leaves himself. We went and raked up the leaves there and at the remaining 4. We really wanted to do all of the residents but ran out of volunteer availability.
All 6 storage bays are at least two thirds full. We’ll move leaves between bays so that just 3 contain leaves. That will leave three for filling next year. In the first year of mulching our experts advise that it is preferable not to cover the bays. Even so, for next year, we have received a donation of some metres of weed control fabric which might be suitable for the purpose.
For the next leaf fall, we’ll need to plan the park clearance more carefully. We need to engage Robbie and/or others on more than one occasion, or find the funds to hire ride on mowers, and make more of an event of park clearing “days” with hot drinks and soup etc.