Tree Planting

5th December

Our final tree planting session to fill the gaps left after the March planting and replace some of those pulled up.

Great weather and not using the mats this time, we took less than 2 hours to plant 500 saplings. There is a video on our youtube channel Rotary Forest - Field 2 (part 2) or view previous entries in the playlist https://www.youtube.com/@brighouserotary

Thanks to everyone who supported and help with this, especially Jason, Simon, Amy and Moy from CMBC for making it happen.

This document contains all the information regarding the project, including photos.

Rotary_Forest_in_Brighouse_-_FINAL_update_-_Dec_2022.pdf

16th March 2022

Today Rotarians from the supporting clubs, Calderdale Countryside, Calderdale Volountary co-ordination and members of the community joined together to plant 800 trees in a second field off Whinney Hill Park. Having good weather in the morning all planting was completed by 12:30 and all tidied away before the rain fell, which was excellent timing!

Photos have been added to this page and the video can be found on the Brighouse Rotary YouTube channel here: Tree Planting Field 2

8th March 2022

Tree planting all set for the 16th March from 9:30. Open to all, no need to book anyone can turn up and plant a number of tree saplings

Mats have been purchased and we are ready to go!

18th Feb 2022

700 Saplings have been sourced and Beardsworth's are looking after them until closer to the planting day

14th Feb 2022

Field two has been approved and work started this morning cutting the grass in the cold and rain. Photos have been added to the end of the slideshow.

A date for planting has been agreed as Wednesday the 16th March, if you would like to be involved please get in touch using the contact details on this page or our Facebook page, no need to be in the Rotary club to be involved.

More updates to follow on here as things progress

Field One Update

This is a joint project with several other Rotary clubs, being recorded here as it's taking place in Brighouse. With great support from Calderdale's Countryside team.

Aim is to plant 1000 trees in a field next to Whinney Hill Park to provide a better environment for wildlife, improve the area for locals to enjoy as well as the environmental benefits of having more trees locally, such as removing the carbon from the air and slow down water drainage.

As stated the fields are next to Whinney Hill Park on the side where the electricity pylons are, behind McDonalds. On the side of the valley not in the bottom as it's not a good idea to plant and allow trees to grow into the high voltage wires!

There are many photos attached (and a video on our Brighouse Rotary YouTube channel) for the planting that loosely make up the activities we undertook, such as;

• Agree site requirements - The countryside team had to make sure there wasn't any planned developments or changes to the proposed land, now or maybe in the future. There are also checks made by the Ecology Officer for wildlife and their habitats.
• Sort funding - to purchase the necessary supplies donations were requested from;
• Rotary clubs
• Rotary District
• Calderdale Ward forum grants
• Obtain supplies - Trees are planted as saplings, depending on the source of various sizes from 10cm to 120cm in height. We were supported by the Woodland Trust and their free trees scheme (420 saplings). Beardsworth's near chain bar roundabout supplied 500 saplings and the countryside team brought additional ones they had available.
• We were advised we didn't need to use the plastic tubes to go round the saplings as the wildlife in the area doesn't provide that danger of damage. These tubes are not environmentally friendly and will need manually taking off after a couple of years.
• What we did decide to go with are biodegradable mats that stop the grass and weeds growing round the sapling, enabling the sapling to thrive. These mats and the pegs used to hold them down are biodegradable, lasting 2-3 years depending on the weather conditions experienced.
• Prepare the land - The countryside team cut the grass and machined it into rows to make planting easier as well as making sure there was sufficient access
• Get support! - A call out to all the Rotary clubs for people to plant the saplings. We decided to keep this first field just for the Rotary clubs as they have provided the funding and only a few have planted trees previously so wanted to make sure they had the opportunity.
• Plant! - Saplings are only planted when they have become dormant, which trees do every winter, 2021 was particularly mild coming into Nov which resulted in the saplings still growing until the end of Nov. On the 6th Dec we all met at 9:30am, after a quick briefing from the Countryside team and a reminder of the risk assessment. We all grabbed some trees, mats, pegs and our spades and set too. 

With a break for coffee and later lunch, we had finised planting around 1:45pm and packed up and left by 2:30pm and we didn't get wet!