Community
in action
This year, Friends of Valley Park was proud to win the #LoveCramlington ‘Green Champions Award’ for the second year running and last year, we also won the award for the Best Urban Project in the LOVE Northumberland Awards.
Our
Mission
A friendly volunteer group which maintains and conserves the woodland, stream and green space of Valley Park in Cramlington for the benefit of the local community and wildlife.
See what we have done so far!
Clearing Pathways
Our first task was to open the pathways, which had become very overgrown, making access difficult. This made a difference to the main path, running through Valley Park immediately.
Later in the year, funding from Northumberland County Council’s Community Chest enabled us to buy strimmer’s and leaf blowers to be able to keep the paths clear of encroaching vegetation and overhanging branches more easily.
Litter Picking & Bird Boxes
We now have a total of 36 numbered bird boxes in the woodland and we’re learning all the time. In year one, we discovered that magpies and woodpeckers can cause damage to the boxes so, this year we installed protection plates, thanks to funding from Cramlington Town Council.
Volunteers from FVP monitor the squirrels on site daily in collaboration with Cramlington & District Red Squirrel Group with the aim of eradicating grey squirrels and encouraging red squirrels to our woodland.
Regular litter picks have removed years’ worth of litter, and the site is now easy to maintain and keep litter-free, meaning large scale litter picks are no longer required.
Feeding Stations
We were also able to make and install our first of our two bird-feeding stations. Participation in the RSPB Big Garden Bird watch in January this year saw greater numbers of birds and species recorded.
Notice Boards & Orchard
Our first successful funding bids enabled us to buy insurance and pay for a noticeboard which we commissioned the Cramlington Man Shed to make for us. This enabled us to inform visitors to the site about our work, events and projects.
FVP assisted the Great Northumberland Forest project by planting an additional 400 saplings on site, making 1250 in total, in addition to a new community orchard of 50 large fruit trees. Great Northumberland Forest chose our group and this planting session to produce a film highlighting the benefits of tree planting with community groups, which we will show you at the end of today’s presentation. The FVP continue to care for the trees, ensuring they thrive.
What people are saying about our efforts
Paul.
“Lovely walk in Valley Park today. Massive well done to all those volunteers et al who have worked so hard to turn this area in to something special. Residents of Cramlington should be very proud of you all..”
Carolyn.
“Thanks to all those volunteers who offer their own personal time to improve the local area for everyone, hats off to you all.”
Lynn.
“The level of work and commitment into caretaking this lovely location on our doorstep by a dedicated team of volunteers has been amazing.”
Visit us
Valley Park is south of the Southfield Green estate
in Cramlington as shown in the map.
Meet us
We get together at the entrance sign to Valley Park every Thursday morning at 10am
Contact
Email: FOVPweb@gmail.com
or visit our Facebook Group
Friends of Valley Park 