News>Annual Report 2010

BARN HILL CONSERVATION GROUP
(Registered Charity No.1085476)
Annual report: 1 April 2010 – 31 March 2011 

The Group has had another busy and successful year, with work continuing come rain come shine in both Fryent Country Park (just 1 morning lost to the snow) and Roe Green Walled Garden.

The Walled Garden was awarded a Green Pennant for the 6th consecutive year. It was also entered for the It’s Your Neighbourhood awards, part of Britain in Bloom, and was judged to be “Thriving” (only one level below top). We held 2 Open Days during the year, and 6 children’s events. The latter covered potatoes, trees, moths, birds, insects and newts. Our volunteer gardeners put in some 680 workdays.

This year, the Country Park was awarded a Green Flag, at the first attempt. We had another heavy programme of tree planting – 320 trees in all. These included Alder Buckthorns, apples, plums, damsons, hawthorns, Silver Birches, roses, and an oak sapling. Some of these came from the Walled Garden tree nursery. We had two successful projects with outside volunteers. The television Discovery Channel was celebrating its 25th anniversary in June, and some staff from the London region gave up a day to helping us clear smothering vegetation from the young fruit trees on the Fryent Way mounds. In November, we were joined by a team of National Sewa Day volunteers, who planted 12,000 daffodil bulbs on the road side of the Fryent Way mounds, as well as several hundred bluebells. More bluebells were planted by BHCG in the new year. Our hardy volunteers put in some 180 workdays over the year.

We have been fortunate to receive two substantial donations this year. Peter Gallop, a long standing member of the Group, died in early 2010, and his son, John, offered us a very generous donation in his memory at a memorial tea party in the summer. The funds accrued by our sister organisation, the Friends of Fryent Country Park, were made available for BHCG work in the Park through the generosity of Carol Gould. Our grateful thanks go to both donors.

Debbie Pledge’s moth trapping continues apace. At the end of March, the species total for the Park had reached 160, eighty of which had been recorded during 2010-11. One of the species, the Welsh Wave, was a new record for Middlesex, and Debbie’s specimen has now been added to the Natural History Museum collection.

The Group had its usual marquee at the Brent Countryside Day in September. In October, three of us attended the It’s Your Neighbourhood awards ceremony at City Hall. In January, we went to the launch of the London Parks 2012 project by the Pesticide Action Network UK.

Well done, everyone!

John Barrington (Chairman)