Town trail - Autumn/Winter sessions

 

There is only one working party on the Town Trail in each of the months September and October but then we're back to fortnightly until Christmas. The dates are as follows; reminders will be sent out to volunteers  as usual.

Monday 19th September

Monday 17th October

Monday 7th November

Monday 21st November

Monday 5th December

Monday 19th December

 

As usual the sessions will run from 10 a.m. for approx 2 hours - depending on energy levels! Also, as usual we will need the group size to be no less than 3, for safety/insurance reasons.

Food waste collections in Hereford powered by bike? And other measures from Herefordshire Council.

Herefordshire Council could be the first local authority in the country to have food waste collected by bike if proposed plans are agreed by cabinet members.

The innovative proposal is set out in a cabinet report on the next steps for the introduction of the new recycling and waste collection service.

The recommendations will be discussed at the cabinet meeting on 21 July. 

Cargo bikes pushing ahead

A cargo bike food waste collection is planned for central Hereford. The zero-carbon approach would see kitchen scraps turned into compost. While the environmentally-friendly step would be a first for a UK council, a BBC report shows food collection by bike is already underway in Paris. Meanwhile, online retailer Amazon is reported to be launching a fleet of e-cargo bikes to replace thousands of van deliveries in London.

New waste collections mandatory

We are working towards introducing a new waste and recycling collection service across the county that includes a weekly food collection and fortnightly garden waste collection service, which councils must introduce as part of new government legislation.

The new enhanced service will provide much more recycling capacity and will improve both the quantity and quality of recycling. Residents will keep the bins they already have for general waste and recycling. The council will pay the one-off cost of additional bins needed to separate different types of waste. This will be offset by savings made every subsequent year in reduced disposal costs.

The move follows recommendations approved by the council on 25 November 2021:

1. The council supports residents to increase recycling by adopting the new waste collection model as outlined in this report with a view to being fully operational in November 2023. This includes:

a.    The introduction of a new two weekly garden waste collection service

b.    The introduction of a new weekly food collection service

c.     The adoption of a twin stream recycling service to enable residents to further segregate recyclable materials and

d.    To adopt a three weekly residual collection model

Getting it right

Residents are being encouraged and supported to make good choices to ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ through our ‘Getting it right’ campaign. This encourages people to put the right items into the right bins. Reducing contamination (putting the wrong things into the wrong bins) will improve recycling rates.  

Other waste reduction measures include the incredibly successful reusable nappy scheme, which is helping residents with young families reduce nappy waste. Its popularity meant the scheme had to end just 30 days after its April launch date.  We also recently announced funding grants for setting up or extending existing repair cafes to discourage people from throwing away repairable household items.

Published: 14th July 2022

Town Trail - Friendly Robin joins the work

We had another session on the Town Trail a couple of weeks ago. You'll see from the photos, that we were joined by a robin again. We sometimes think the birds are watching out for us so that they can forage in the earth we've disturbed.

 

We've had a couple of comments expressing concern about the nesting season. We stopped working in the area between Woodleigh Road and Bridge Street for this reason. 

 

In the area down from the station, we are mainly clearing excess ivy off the ground. There are no ground nesting birds in the area where we are working - which is mainly a strip either side of the path. This is a good area to encourage woodland edge plants which would increase the biodiversity. We will not be clearing the whole area as it is important to leave some ivy and a diversity of habitats. Whilst we are doing this, we also clear a lot of litter.

As you may know, the Trail is owned by Herefordshire Council. We operate under a Licence to Cultivate granted to the Town Council. The work we do is part of a maintenance plan agreed with both councils. We also take advice from ecologists and environmentalists. We have carried out one review with Herefordshire Council/Balfour Beatty since we started work in October last year and plan to do another one during the autumn/winter.

 Our next session is on Monday 27th June and as always, you can contact us on sustainableledbury@gmail.com

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Sustainable Ledbury Midsummer update

Summer is on its way and we’re thinking about the Poetry Festival. Together with our friends at Pot & Page Café we’ve organised a children’s poetry competition. Details have been out for a while now but you can still contact us for an application form via email on sustainableledbury@gmail.com or via our website, sutainableledbury.co.uk The closing date is 10^th June and winners will be notified by 24^th June. Prize giving will be part of a children’s event at Pot & Page on the afternoon of Saturday 2^nd July. The theme of the competition is ‘Looking after Our World’.

We’ve been looking after our world too. We’re making progress on the Town Trail. Before the nesting season started, we managed to clear ivy and brambles from the section of the Trail between Bye Street and Woodleigh Road. We’re leaving this section now until after the nesting season. There’s still plenty to do. With help from Balfour Beatty, we’ve cut back some of the ivy on the trees on the section of the Trail that runs down the side of the Recreation Ground, letting in more light. We’re now making a start at clearing some of the ivy along the station end of the Trail. It’s been good to get all the positive feedback on Facebook and to have new volunteers join us.

If you read this before Community Day, come and find us there and we can tell you more about what we’re doing and talk about our Waste Reduction project.

Town Trail - Bridge, what Bridge?

We had another session on the Town Trail last week, working on the bridge. You didn't know there was a bridge? We're not surprised. It was covered in ivy. It looks a bit different now.

When we'd finished we surveyed a small area and identified 11 wildflowers. We hope there'll be more as we let the light in.

Our next session is on Monday morning, 13th June. For more information contact us on sustainableledbury@gmail.com