Winning designs for village wildlife area

Published by Kelly Elliott for Cestria Community Housing in Housing and also in Communities

A pond, a bog, bird boxes, bee hotels and wildflowers are amongst the ideas school children have come up with for a new wildlife area in their village.

Members of Sacriston Junior School’s Eco Group were tasked with helping to transform the piece of unused land – which is owned by Cestria Community Housing.

They were awarded with certificates for their efforts by the County Durham housing association’s chief executive Paul Fiddaman, who praised their creativity and enthusiasm.

He said: “I was very impressed with the ideas the children have come up with – they’ve really thought about the different insects and animals they want to attract to the garden and how they can achieve that.

“We’re really pleased the land is being transformed and hope it will become a place the whole community can visit and enjoy.”

Work to create the garden is being carried out by Cestria’s Community Caretaker Team, members of which usually carry out tasks such as grass cutting, weed spraying, tree maintenance, snow clearing and gritting on land belonging to the Association.

Team supervisor Michael Hall said: “We have a few of these little pieces of land which we refer to as being landlocked – they can’t be used for much because of their size and location and can sometimes be targeted by fly-tippers.”

Pupils from the Eco Group will be helping with planting and seeding while members of Cestria’s repairs team have volunteered their joinery skills to produce bird and bat boxes and a bee hotel.

Other members of staff from the organisation are also volunteering to give up their time to help with planting during weekends.

Sacriston Junior School teacher and Eco Group leader Nicola Miller said: “This is a great project for the children to be involved with - they really enjoyed thinking up plans for what they could do with the garden and are looking forward to helping with the planting once that starts.”

The land is currently being cleared to allow the planting to begin. Anyone who would like to volunteer to help with the wildlife garden should contact Cestria Community Housing on 0191 385 1900.