Volunteers restore beautiful park land

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Photo: Laura Wild

Volunteers celebrate the transformation

Crimble Wood at the bottom of Clement Royds Street has had a massive transformation today (Saturday 26 June 2010) from almost 150 green fingered helpers.

The land, known to many as Clements Park has suffered from fly tipping for many years and was terribly over grown.

However, thanks to a group of volunteers from the Latter Day Saints, Rochdale Borough Council and of course, those living close to the land, it has been given a face lift and is now the perfect place to go for a summer picnic.

Volunteers arrived at 10.00am this morning and by 2.30pm they had cleared the footpath, removed endless amounts of rubbish and pulled out weeds.

Wendy Milner, co-ordinator of the church group said: “Everybody has mucked in and it has made such a big difference. It was very over grown here and we have done so much throughout the day.

“Some volunteers stayed for an hour or so and some have stayed all day. We are very happy with what we have achieved.”

Councillor Greg Couzens, helped to put in the plan in place by posting leaflets and helping to chop down trees, he described the end result today as ‘tremendous.’

“This is such a beautiful piece of land and it was all hidden because it has been fly tipped for so long.

“My agenda is to open up all these ‘green corridors’ into the town centre so people can walk or cycle to work, but before it wasn’t safe,” said Councillor Couzens.

Mr Couzens added: “This has really brought the community together and we are tackling it bit by bit, we started six months ago and the improvements are unbelievable.”

Mr Couzens explained that the aim is to change peoples habits and get them out of the mentality of fly tipping.

“Many families live just 100 yards or so from this land and children were playing football in the street because there was nowhere to go. At least now the children have somewhere to play safely,” said Mr Couzens

The next step is to give leaflets to local people letting them know where to take their rubbish free of charge.

Speaking about all the hard work, Mr Couzens said: “I am ecstatic, I didn’t think we could achieve all this in one day. Many hands certainly make light work.”