Northfield Constituency Environmental Forum

Oct 1 2021 BVT Bournville Lane

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Present

Penny Moore Friends of Balams Wood, Graham Andrews Friends of Ley Hill Park, Richard Hughes Bournville Village Trust, Roland Kedge Ray Valley Conservation Group, Jeff Skidmore Rea Valley Conservation Group, Linda Coates Frankley Carnival, Steve Hinton Birmingham City Council Head Ranger, David Collins Longbridge Retirement Village, Sue Hendry, Fran Teal, Rob Andrews, Friends of Senneleys Park, Clive and Maggie Sweet Friends of Millennium Green Trust

 

Apologies

Sue Amey, Amanda Cadman,Lee Copplestone, Jessica Allan BVTCommunity,

 

Welcome

Penny welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked Richard and Jessica for having set up the meeting at the Bournville Village Trust HQ.

 

Minutes from last meeting

Approved with one amendment Friends of Millennium Trust contact at the National Trust is Dan not Dave

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Treasurer's report

in her absence

funds are the same.

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Green Bournville- https://www.BVT.org.uk/

Richard Hughes introduced himself to the members as the estates manager for the Bournville Village Trust..

Richard has a team that manage all the BVT Open Spaces in Bournville and there is another team managing the spaces in Telford.

Richard also has a responsibility for BVT to keep control of the appearance and upkeep of the amenities on the estate this include such things as grass mowing, tree management, emptying of litter bins ,etc. Residents ,both tenants and owner occupiers, have to apply to BVT for any alterations to properties to be approved, to this end the Bournville Village Trust has produced a Design Guide which tries to cover most common projects and also sets the scene for the estate, it's style, and environment. Copies of the Design Guide were made available to members the guide has recently been updated to include such things as heat pumps and solar panels and is available electronicallyon the BVT website- https://www.BVT.org.uk/our-communities/bournville-design-guide-review/open space management

There is a team of  landscapers who do things like shrub pruning, tree control, new planting, mowing. The whole area of the trust has just completed a tree management review. It's to be noted that residents do need permission to fell a tree.

A biodiversity survey was commissioned using the Birmingham Black Country Wildlife Trust and Severn Trent funded it ,it looked at all the land, insects, wildlife, trees ,etc and produced 140 page report. BVT are just analysing that report.

It is highly likely that we will have to change the mowing regime, promote more wildflowers areas, we already have one at Weoley Park. It is to be noted the Travellers have also been on Weoley Hill but have now been evicted

As well as the obvious environmental green areas BVT have three allotments and 3 caravan parking sites two apiries one at BVT HQ and one on Row Heath

BVT use electronic mapping to keep up-to-date on all its areas under there control but many of the green parks and open spaces are under the ownership of Birmingham City Council.

Roland asked about glacial boulders on the Bournville Village Trust land and wondered if they knew where they all were in particular the one in Garland Way is obscured by undergrowth. Roland talked about Professor Fairchild and the successful grant for the new erratic boulder walk.

Richard said he was not aware of the big boulder in Garland Way but would investigate and see how it could be made more appealing and visually exciting.

The Bournville Village Trust owns Row Heath and looks after it plus it's playing field. The pavilion is leased from BVT. There is an Orchard planted on Row Heath and it's doing rather well.

Linda asked if BVT had any intention to build more housing on its Birmingham Estate Richard said he was not aware of any green spaces being taken for housing

Graham asked if Richard could say a little bit about the agricultural land that BVT owns.

Richard said BVT manage a number of agricultural estates on the edge of Birmingham, which were originally acquired by the Cadbury family during the first half of the 20th century.

The estates cover approximately 2,500 acres and comprise of three main estates, Chadwich, Weatheroak and Groveley, together with around 40 acres at Stoke Prior in Bromsgrove.The majority of the estate is in agricultural use, particularly dairy with subsidiary arable, beef and sheep enterprises.

Ranger Service Report

Steve said that they were still vacancies that had not been filled. The restructure announcement was now scheduled for 2022. They are short staffed at both Woodgate Valley and Lickey Hills

Volunteering is now up and running again

The Wychall Storage Reservoir Dam is being rebuilt as part of a flood scheme. The

National River Project is working on the catchment area to reduce flooding so it is highly likely that the Brooks through our parks will see some activity in the next 12-months. It's all in aid of enhancing the environment and reducing flooding.Covid has delayed all projects

White Egrets are now common on our rivers, which perhaps is an indication of climate change. Ravens are now appearing in parks as well as ring necked parakeets

There is no doubt that the restructuring of street scene will impact on parks.

Ash dieback is still increasing the most recent practice is to leave the core of the tree unpruned but take off all the dead and diseased side branches and leaves. This way it is hoped that some form of immunity may be passed onto the trees rather than as in the Dutch Elm outbreak everything was cut down.

Phytophera in larch has seen the clearing of 21 hectares of land. Sweet chestnut can also be affected amongst others like bilberry.

7 Thousand Trees have been replanted on the Lickey Hills

Maggie commented  that many of the mature trees must have been planted just after WWII on the Lickey Hills due to their age and size.

Steve said that there is a large debate within the council on how to move forward with wildflower meadows and how to support them. This not only includes Park land but also things like roundabouts and dual carriageways.

Graham said we arent maintaining them very well now let alone add more. Penny suggested she would write to John o shea with positive increased support for meadows and BCC resources.

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Fields of Millennium Trust

The trust still struggles to recruit volunteers. Steve said this is an issue all around Birmingham.

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Senneleys Park

The group has managed to work through the lockdown albeit socially distanced but it is good to get the group back together again.We are struggling for volunteers too.

It was great to see Rob back at the meeting.

They have been working on the ponds, pruning trees, tidying up the general area, which is now looking good.

The egrets are back in Senneleys too and wildlife in general is increasing a roe deer has been seen in the park and it could be responsible for nibbling tree bark

Steve said it could be but if it was nibbled low down then that could be squirrels or voles .

The wildlife Meadow has been cut but not collected another failure to amintian meadows properly.

Travellers have been in the park again!

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Friends of Manor Park Farm Park

The heritage trail has proved a great success and on the back of a Bournville Trust Heritage Day when they opened the park and the trail it was a good day. https://www.friendsofmanorfarmpark.org.uk/fomfp/

They managed to get the post office to deliver leaflets locally also increasing attendance and awareness.

They managed to continue work days during 2020... for example Himalayan balsam.

The lake has been dredged Islands upgraded and cleared for wildlife

Material from the dredging has been left on either side of the lake to dry off this hasn't looked very nice but it has achieved the objectives

3 picnic tables have been purchased and put in.

On 27th of October at Halloween event will take place in the park

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Longbridge Retirement

Planning a litter pick soon and asked Penny to send details of the BCC offer of free equipment through to them Penny said she will do that

The group are looking at turning some small spaces of grass into a wildflower area

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Friends of Balaams Wood

3 years ago planted a meadow and have since topped it up. It got badly mowed by BCC and is now recovering.

Litter picks are regularly carried out on the Rea Valley pathway

Two wooden benches were trashed but the Friends and rangers worked together to repair them

A grant for free Tai Chi has just been implemented and support is increasing especially as we're doing it in the open air in the centre of Frankley not in the woods

Frank Balham a US citizen and artist has taken a great interest in the wood. He has incorporated it in some of his paintings and from the sale of these paintings he makes a part profit donation to the group.

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Rea Valley Community Group

The 33rd RVCG AGM takes place next week they are looking for new members.

The wildflower patch is going well

The crack Willows are an issue when they fall, as they are such a big trees,and take some removal and tidying

5 years ago they expanded to tackle the Turves Green Dingle, a narrow deep river valley at the back of Turves Green Girls School they have successfully litter picked year-on-year to which is a great achievement.This was after considerable pressure from the council to do nothing. Now fully cleared 3 local volunteers are going to look after it.

The Mill stone from the river Rea is now going to end up in the Pastoral Centre Northfield where it will be on display. It is a shame it can't be kept by the river but at least it will be safe at the centre.

 

Friends of Ley Hill Park

We have had a new seat installed but then it was vandalised. Now repaired.

We have been lifting trees and repairing the Holloway fence when vandalised. Even though parks have no spare timber!

We have had our first formal meeting of the Friends last week and it's great to see that we have all survived the cv outbreak

When the first sunday work day took place and we cleared and tidied up ponds

A tree trail walk and talk was well received and 25 people went on the walk. We may do more next year.

The wild flower meadows still haven't been cut yet.Should have been done 6 weeks ago.

There followed a discussion about future meadows and maintenance and contractors vs parks in house. There is a lot to do on this subject and clearly parks need support. As a result Penny agreed on behalf of the forum to write to Councillor O'Shea. She will share the draft with the members first to add their comments.Action Penny and members

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Any other business

Penny pointed out that we are all entirely vountary and have roughly 14 member groups.

There are still issues we need to address, in particular volunteers coming to help groups,and there is little in the public domain to tell them about our existence.

Richard said it would be very good idea to put a newsletter article in the BVT newsletter. Penny agreed we would do this. Action Penny

Members pointed out a number of websites and companies who might be able to help us these included Lloyds Bank, HSBC, conservation volunteers, waterside care, be inspired etc

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Penny closed the meeting at 4pm.

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Our next meeting would be the first week in December (3rd) and could perhaps include some sort of hands-on craft work.