Last Updated: May 2
Category: GBN Projects
A former stone quarry in Calderdale is being established as a tree nursery, growing species native to the area, thanks to the GBN’s ABLE Project.
Trees of Light, a Sowerby Bridge based, not for profit organisation, was having problems expanding its social enterprise due to a lack of land to store saplings. During the summer months, the lack of storage space became so acute that young volunteers from Halifax’s Pitstop Project transported about 400 trees for temporary storage at ABLE. The problem was solved when they were introduced to the landscape products company Marshalls plc at an award ceremony at ABLE in 2006 as they had spare areas of reclaimed land.
By November, a former Marshall’s stone quarry in Southowram, Halifax was under consideration for a polytunnel as a covered working area allowing visits from school children / youth groups. With encouragement from the GBN, a Local Network Fund grant for the polytunnel was successful in May 2007, with planning permission following later that year.
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| Trees of Light polytunnel under construction at Marshalls Cross Platts Quarry |
Marshalls and the GBN continue to actively support the project as it moves forward. There are several possible markets for locally-sourced trees and Marshalls themselves have other areas of land which are being planted and returned to nature.
ABLE has recently supplied 479 willow cuttings, as the boundary for part of the nursery area. Marshalls will be supplying waste timber for reuse as shelving and benches, which will be constructed at The Chestnut Centre, Huddersfield by a youth project from Longley Special School. The rainwater falling on the polytunnel will be collected in recycled IBC’s supplied by a local plastics recycler, Oak Environmental Ltd. This will then be used to water the trees.
