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If someone asked you what size skip you might need to clear Redland Green of the accumulated rubbish of decades, you would probably be unlikely to guess at 8 cubic metres.
Yet this was the size of skip that was filled to capacity (seen here) on Thursday 29 April after local residents participated in a “deep cleanse” organised by Redland Green Community Group and supported by Bristol City Council Parks Department.
Council parks works employee Ben Brown played a huge part in supporting the volunteers: as well as the skip, he brought a Kubota (mini-digger), seen below. Transporting these between the green and the Council’s depot at Sea Mills required a huge tractor and trailer, and separate trips for each.
About 20 locals, members of RGCG and Green Party Councillor Fi Hance, seen here with Ben in the Kubota, turned out with wheelbarrows and sack trucks and a huge amount of combined energy, and piled the skip high. This wouldn’t have been possible without Ben and his Kubota. He set to work clearing the areas along the path from St Oswald’s Road with the digger – rubbish and rubble often tangled up with bramble – which cleared the way for hand-picking out the remaining rubbish afterwards. While he did that, residents attacked the woodland by the garages, bringing barrowload after barrowload to the skip.
Many hands made light work – five hours after we started, the green was looking as beautiful as it should, relieved of its burden of long-standing eyesores.
What needed cleaning up?
What needed cleaning up?
The Green generally looks so clean (plastic sweet wrappers and bottles notwithstanding) that the rubbish lurking around the perimeters might not have attracted much attention to the passer-by, absorbed by his or her smartphone.
But to local residents, and particularly those of Cossins Road, there was an eyesore that was a significant source of vexation in amongst the trees in front of the garages at the Coldharbour Road end of Cossins road.
This was rubbish that had been fly-tipped there over two decades ago, and included a rusting counter refrigerator, a microwave, bags of building rubble and clothes, a bed base, a bathroom handbasin, many concrete fence post bases and much more besides.
This area does not belong to the Council and while contiguous with it, isn’t part of the green. However, that technicality makes no difference to local children, for whom it is simply a play area. It was safe to conclude that as the garage owners/managers have done nothing in two decades to get rid of this rubbish, they were not going to.
Before and after the deep cleanse
The second problem area was several stretches behind the houses on Coldharbour Road, where more fly-tipping over time had resulted in an unappealing mess of old rugs, rusting metal, bricks and building rubble, cables, an old chain link fence, concrete fence post bases and a growing amount of litter. This mess has been been a carbuncle on the face of a much-loved green for far too long.
Before and after pictures are below.
The third was the woodland running for part of the way between Cossins and St Oswald’s Road. Legend has it that after the Bishops Palace (located where Alderman’s Park now is) was bombed in World War II, its rubble was piled up in various local places, including this north-west corner of the green. Rain and erosion reveal the bricks, concrete and broken tiles over time, and a periodic clean-up, while not removing this legacy, at least makes the woodland look more attractive.
Additional benefits were that the cleanse revealed a stolen bicycle in the Dell. The police have been able to trace the owner.
And a new hibernaculum has been created to replace the log pile hibernaculum stolen from the green in March. This one should be sufficiently heavy as to deter theft - or so we hope.
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