Environment

We have had two further sessions maintaining the station garden and have now replanted the boat as a ‘dry garden,’ with grasses kindly supplied by Honnor & Jeffrey.   We now look after the library garden and have used some of our funds to buy new plants this month.

Our Open Day was a success, despite the awful weather and a considerable number of Shanklin residents came to find out more about what we do and to offer to help.  We now have 20 volunteers for the Green Streets Scheme in which people undertake to spend a few minutes each week in keeping their own street clean.  Others have asked to help with beach cleans or have placed their orders for free trees in the autumn or want to attend a free talk on composting at Ventnor Botanics later this year.  Many tried the Interactive Recycling Game and had fun learning more about the new scheme.

On 26th May we did a special event, getting a team together to clear the beach from Luccombe Chine to Shanklin Chine.  Twenty three volunteers including Cubs, Beavers and pensioners spent two hours collecting nearly 1500 items.  This will be our entry for the Daily Mail ‘Spring Clean for the Queen’ competition and we hope to win money to be spent in the community.

Just to give you a brief update: we did our quarterly beach clearance at Appley Beach (next to Shanklin Chine) all the way round to Luccombe Chine on 21st March with four volunteers. We collected 779 items of rubbish including two broken lobster pots and an oil drum. Most of the items we found were plastic which has worrying implications because of the very long time it takes to break down and even then it hasn’t ‘gone away.’ The results of the survey were sent off to the Marine Conservation Society.

The other news is that we’re having an Open Day at Falcon Cross Hall from 10:00am to 4:00pm on Saturday 28th April. There will be free refreshments and some hand-outs plus a chance to find out what we do and hopefully we’ll recruit some more volunteers. Everyone is welcome and there are even a couple of interactive ‘games’ for those who want to have a go.

What’s it all about?

The idea behind Green Towns is to encourage people within the community to take positive action so that real environmental improvements can be achieved.  The Shanklin branch has been active for just over a year and is supported by the Town Council and Natural Enterprise.

We have a small Steering Group of local residents, including representatives from the Town Council, the Voluntary Youth and Community Club and the Community Police.  Regular meetings enable us to generate ideas which volunteers can then help to carry out.

Last year we organised many ‘quick response’ litter picks in various parts of the town, involving volunteers both young and old and we keep the theatre car park tidy. We have officially adopted Appley Beach, where we do quarterly beach cleans, sending the survey results to the Marine Conservation Society.

We distributed free water and energy-saving gadgets to help people consume less and save money and we obtained fifty small trees to give away to local residents and organisations.

We organised a visit to Ventnor Botanic Gardens for a session on How to Make Really Good Compost, with a free tea as well! Links with local schools and the Beavers were established and we plan to continue these.

In April we negotiated with Island Line to give the station garden a makeover and we now have regular gardening sessions and have added a boat and two lobster pots to enhance the appearance of the station. We’d be happy to maintain other planted areas such as the library garden but for this to happen we need plenty more volunteers.

One of our long-term aims is to improve the cycle track so that more people can use it year-round and we’re investigating grant funding in this respect. A Green Streets Scheme is something we hope to start this year, whereby residents volunteer to spend a few minutes each week to keep their street litter-free, using equipment we’d provide. We’re keen to establish links with local businesses too.

What can you do to help?

Become one of our team of volunteers!  It needn’t take much of your time but it will be rewarding and you’ll be helping to make Shanklin a better place in which to live, work or spend holidays.

Contact Us
Lesley on: 01983 868309 or e-mail: johnandlesley1@talktalk.net
Bridget on: 07792 174941

On the 14th & 15th March 2002 a group of SHAA Hoteliers dug out and planted a garden at Shanklin Station. We built a fence that would enable us to reach the garden to weed regularly. All the plants and timber was donated by local island companies and to commemorate this, a large plaque was attached to the fence. SHAA Chairman at the time was Les Burrows who along with the Committee at the time organised the gardening weekend. We found a local man to weed once a week for us and we felt that we had achieved something worthwhile.

Recently though, the garden was looking very tired and overgrown but still bore the SHAA name. The committee was looking for a solution when Lesley Hampshire from the Green Towns’ Shanklin approached SHAA to invest some money and time into re-planting the garden. This was greatly appreciated by the Committee and we donated £50.00 to help with the planting. Having been donated a boat, which is now planted out and is situated to one side of the garden they have achieved a lot in a small time. Lesley has also undertaken to keep up with the weeding eventhough it is now more difficult to obtain entry into the gardens as permission is always needed. The garden now is a vast improvement and if anyone has a free ten minutes just pop in and have a look.