Sherwood Dales Neighbourhood Watch and Community Group

Sherwood Dales satellite map

Upcoming Events, Tree Cutting and Rain Gardens

– Written by

Steve Barker

in

Members of the community group sat round a table at the pub quiz

Ay-up neighbours! 👋

Upcoming Events 🗓️

We’ve got three events coming up that we hope will be of interest. As always, keep an eye on our events page for more ways you can get involved with our community.

Pub Quiz 🍺

First up is the pub quiz on Thursday 26th March at The Vale Hotel pub. We field a team there once a month and never quite embarrass ourselves, but are often some way off the leaders. If you think you can help us change that (or just fancy a fun night out), do join us. We tend to get there around 7:30 pm.

Monthly Social ☕

We’re running our first monthly social, also at The Vale Hotel pub on Wednesday 1st April at 12:00 pm. There’s no agenda for the meet-up – just come along, meet some of your neighbours and have a laugh over a coffee (or stronger drink!). We’d be happy to answer any questions you may have at the meet-up, and it would be a good opportunity to get some assistance with our new website if you need it.

Rain Garden Weeding 🌱

Judith Penney and her team of rain garden weeding volunteers

Judith Penney and her team of volunteer gardeners put in their second shift weeding the rain gardens last Tuesday, ready for them to be replanted. They’re back on the tools again for their third gardening outing on Tuesday 24th March, meeting at 2 pm at the junction of Rydale Road and Ribblesdale Road. We can honestly say that community weeding is a lot more fun than doing it on your own, and the conversation and jokes helped the time to fly by. Please join us if you can.

Estate Tree Cutting 🌳

In our last progress update we mentioned that we can collectively organise for a tree cutting contractor to trim problematic trees on the estate. While residents will need to pay for this themselves, we can get council approval for the work in one go, and hopefully we’ll get a discounted rate if enough people are interested. So far, only four people have come forward, which probably isn’t enough to make it worth our while organising this collectively. However, if we can get a few more people involved, we’re good to go.

If you would like us to help you arrange a quotation, please email info@sherwooddales.org.uk with your name, address and contact number by Sunday 22nd March.

Tarrah for now, mi ducks! 🦆

Rob and Steve – Co-Chairs

Comments

2 responses to “Upcoming Events, Tree Cutting and Rain Gardens”

  1. Lindley Hearson avatar
    Lindley Hearson

    Hello Rob & Steve, you recently told me that trees on my road are due to be chopped down, on inspecting the one nearest to my house, I noticed that it’s about to blossom, would this happen if it’s diseased, as you said? The cherry blossom trees on the road have given much pleasure for years, it seems really sad that we’re going to be left with empty spaces, rather like Spondon Street.

    1. Steve Barker avatar
      Steve Barker

      Hi Lindley – yes, we agree, the removal of trees is a shame and has a negative impact on the area. If trees marked for removal appear to be healthy, we’re not sure what the justification is. We’ll try to get a specific reason for this tree’s removal, given that it is currently in blossom, and will get back to you.

      It is difficult to get a straight answer out of the council, though. For example, when we walked the estate with the Tree Services Manager, they first said they didn’t know what the green dots on the trees were and that they would not have been put there by the council, only later telling us that it was the council that tagged them and that this signified removal.

      There is also a huge gap between council policy on tree replacements and actual replacements. As you say, a casual glance over the Sherwood Facebook group suggests that tree removal is an issue affecting the whole ward, not just our estate, and that trees are routinely being replaced with tarmac.

      The only route to getting trees replaced with actual trees seems to be the Streets for People funding initiative. We’ve requested money from this budget via our local councillors, but we’re not hopeful that we’ll be successful. As a last resort, we’ve put in a Freedom of Information request to try to get a full assessment of the council’s tree replacement programme. We’ll share our findings when we get a response.

Leave a Reply