The first of some 1,200 trees destined for six Thanet sites will be planted tomorrow (January 11) at Dane Park.
The event starts with a launch by the fountain from 9am which will be attended by BBC Gardeners World presenter Frances Tophill, Margate mayor Mick Tomlinson and a representative from part-funders RiverOak Strategic Partners.
There will be tea/coffee and cakes thanks to the use of facilities at Dane Park Bowls Club.
Planting in three areas at the park will then follow up until 2pm. Anyone who wants to take part is welcome to turn up between those times.
The £1million project is headed up by new group The Isle of Thanet Trees and Woods Initiative (ITTWI) after it successfully secured £525,000 from the Urban Tree Challenge Fund – overseen by the Forestry Commission – plus £100,000 funding support from RiverOak Strategic Partners. alongside £430,000 labour ‘in kind,’from volunteers making a total project value of £1,055,000.
The group is made up of isle teacher and Thanet Community Forest School founder Luke Evans, Colourful Margate lead Stephanie Nsom; Peter Hasted of the Sunken Garden Revival project; Steve Darling of Dane Valley Woods and Thanet councillor Ash Ashbee.
The Urban Tree Challenge Fund was set up in response to the Government’s 25 year Environmental Plan as a means of re-greening some the UK’s districts with low tree canopy coverage.
Thanet has the lowest tree canopy out of any district in the whole of the UK with just 4.4%. In comparison, London has a 29% tree canopy.
The ITTWI project will plant trees across Dane Valley Woods; George Park; Dane Park; The Sunken Gardens Westbrook;Dane Valley Green and the Dane Valley Woods old landfill site.
Trees will be of various varieties and maturity.
One million pounds spent on 1200 trees. Good job everything else in thanet is rosy or you could say what a waste of money. PS since when has margate been thanet ?
What about the rest of Thanet?
It’s really good to see that some trees are being planted in Thanet.
But they’re all being planted in Margate.
Perhaps those generous benefactors RSP could be approached to see if they’d sponsor some more trees in Ramsgate, the town that will be blighted if their DCO application to reopen Manston airport is successful.
If RSP doesn’t get the CPO, perhaps they could instead plant hundreds of trees on their land and call it Manston Woods. Or even Manston Forest- it’s a big site.
DCO as they’ve bought the site, SHP having got fed up with TCC’s (in its previous incarnation) absurd attitude towards them that they decided to sell it to RSP and go somewhere where the local council is, one hopes, not so prejudiced against mixed-use development.
Good riddance to SHP or should we say, Gloag & Co.
Why good riddance? Their plan was better than RSP’s.
HER plan was houses, houses, houses
HER plan? SHE didn’t have anything to do with SHP. SHE sold the site to Musgrave and Cartner.
THEIR plan was a mixed use development of various kinds of housing, business, industry, leisure and recreation.
Who knows what we’ll get at Manston now? Not likely to be an airport.
How could an airport be better than a mixed-use development? Why do some people insist that Ann Gloag owned the site? And why do they think Ann Gloag is a villain but that RSP are some kind of hero?