Ferry Road Park (28 February 2024)

Despite the miserable weather, 15 volunteers came along to Ferry Road Park (near Ikea) this morning and gave it a thorough clean up.
It’s only a small area of woodland (just under 3 acres), but it still generated numerous bags of the usual rubbish, plus assorted larger items, including a pushchair, an office chair, a laundry basket, a traffic cone, four pairs of shoes, about a dozen footballs, and a pink “Barbie” space-hopper.
We also cleared a large amount of bramble from the roadside bank of the park, at the request of the Park Rangers . This has given the small area of grassy meadow more of a sense of space, and will also benefit any wildflowers that have managed to survive so far.
Sadly, quite a lot of rubbish remains trapped in the depths of the undergrowth, but hopefully it will be accessible at some point.

Howardian Nature Reserve (4 February 2024)

At least 40 volunteers came along to Howardian Nature Reserve on a wet and windy February morning. They removed an appalling amount of fly-tipping from a watercourse that runs along the edge of the reserve, and also cleared a lot of scrap metal from an ‘encampment’ that had been made amongst the trees.

The fly-tipped rubbish included the usual domestic waste (eg, food packaging and drinks bottles & cans), plus 4 walking frames, 2 wheeled ‘tri-walkers’, a large number of toys, numerous footballs, bags of clothing, a lot of shoes (quite a few of which appeared to be new and unworn), a leather sofa, a double-bed base, numerous chairs (wooden and metal), several carpets, seemingly endless amounts of chipboard from kitchen units and flat-pack furniture (most of which was now wet and crumbling), bags of unopened canned food, polystyrene packing materials, several children’s bikes, a child’s slide, a flatscreen TV, and the inevitable traffic cone.

The most upsetting part – aside from the eyesore and pollution of a watercourse – was the fact that so many of the items could have been re-used by others.

The total haul was about 5 tipper-loads of rubbish, plus a trailer-load of scrap metal.

Many thanks to Jess and Alec from the Community Park Rangers – Wild About Cardiff – for their support, and for ferrying a lot of the rubbish using their wonderful electric buggy…

… and to enforcement staff from the council, who will be investigating the fly-tipping, to find evidence that will identify the culprits.

Lots more photos on Flickr.

Hendre Lake Park (27 January 2024)

CRG & St Mellons Clean Up combined forces to do a “deep clean” of Hendre Lake Park. Overall, they mustered around 33 volunteers, including some welcome new faces.

The vegetation along the paths and around the fishing pegs had been cut back recently, to reveal a lot of “embedded” rubbish — some of it had obviously been there a very long time. There was also quite a lot of fly-tipped waste, including used nappies.

The final haul was almost 90 big bags of rubbish, plus a large amount of miscellaneous items, including an upholstered foot stool (retrieved from the lake), a car wheel and a large gas cylinder.

A lot of the rubbish — especially things like broken camping chairs, plus drinks cans and food packaging in the reeds & brambles next to fishing pegs — had clearly been dumped by an irresponsible minority of anglers. It’s so sad that the actions of a thoughtless few can spoil things for everyone else, not to mention the hazards posed to wildlife.

Still, Hendre Lake Park now looks much cleaner than it did — let’s hope it stays that way for a while.

And our thanks to the Community Park Rangers for being there to supervise & support us.

Roath Park Wild Gardens (17 January 2024)

Around 20 volunteers spent the morning in Roath Park Wild Gardens. Most of them occupied their time by building ever-larger habitat piles from lots (and lots!) of laurel, at the request of Gareth, from the Community Park Rangers.

The laurel had been cut down because it had spread far too much and was completely shading out the understorey, excluding any native species. Cherry laurel is notoriously invasive in this way, because it’s shade-tolerant (and so grows well in existing woodland), is evergreen and densely leaved (and so shades out anything below it), and is spread quickly by birds that eat its attractive red berries.

Others did a litter-pick, which always seems to necessary, wherever we are, sad to say.

Parc Tredelerch (13 January 2024)

Around 25 volunteers spent the morning planting trees and litter-picking in Parc Tredelerch.  Over 500 trees were planted, under the expert direction of Alec from the Community Park Rangers.

The trees will eventually form hedge around an area of marshy meadow that’s historically been excellent for wildflowers, especially orchids, but which has been suffering from too much ‘footfall’ in recent years.

A variety of different species were planted — hawthorn, which will form the main ‘structure’ of the hedge, together with rowan, spindle, hazel and hornbeam.

The litter-pick produced quite a heavy crop of bags, although most of the rubbish came from the road verges outside the park. And there were also several of the now-inevitable nitrous oxide canisters.

Grangemoor Park (6 January 2024)

In a welcome contrast to all the recent rain, the 22 volunteers who came along to Grangemoor Park were treated to a gloriously sunny winter’s morning.

One group carried on with the habitat management that we started before Xmas — cutting down self-seeded willow, dogwood, bramble, etc, to help restore an area of grassy meadow and clear a watercourse, and building a dead hedge with all the brash.

Another group litter picked the park, a task that is, sadly, always necessary.

Council Cuts Will Hit Parks Hard!

Cardiff Council is currently conducting a wide-ranging budget consultation as it needs to find £30.5m in savings to balance the books in 2024/25.
One of the areas in which cuts are being proposed is Parks, with the potential loss of four Park Rangers, including two from the Community Park Rangers team.
The Community Park Rangers are responsible for the conservation management of all of Cardiff Council’s nature reserves (excluding Flat Holm), ensuring effective habitat management to preserve and enhance biodiversity. Overall, they play a fundamental role in the management of 58 locally designated ‘Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation’ (SINC), 7 ‘Sites of Special Scientific Interest’ (SSSI), 1 ‘Special Area of Conservation’ (SAC), 2 ‘Country Parks’ and 4 ‘Local Nature Reserves’ (LNR).
CRG is proud to work closely with the Community Park Rangers, and is reliant on them for their expertise and experience in directing what we do. If there were fewer Rangers available to supervise volunteers it would inevitably mean fewer CRG events on council land, with the consequent loss of many hours of productive activity. (CRG volunteers collectively did approximately 750 hours of work on council-managed land in 2023.) And there would be a similar impact on the more than 20 Friends groups, plus the numerous other community groups, charities and organisations with which they work.
We also find it impossible to reconcile the proposed cuts to the Community Park Rangers with the “Nature Emergency” declared by the council in 2021, a declaration that was supposed to give biodiversity equal prominence with climate change at the heart of the council’s decision making.
We’d encourage everyone to complete the whole of the council’s budget consultation survey, but especially the section on Parks.
The survey is online at https://online1.snapsurveys.com/Budget_2024-25_Cyllideb and paper copies of the survey are also available at Hubs across the city.
More information on the council’s current budget situation is at https://www.cardiff.gov.uk/…/Council…/Pages/default.aspx

Radyr Weir (16 December 2023)

24 volunteers spent the morning litter-picking the Taff Trail, upstream and downstream of Radyr Weir, plus tackling the grass verge along Longwood Drive.

A wader-wearing trio spent the whole two hours in the Melingriffith feeder, walking slowly up from the stone bridge towards the weir, removing drinks cans from the stream bed. Despite CRG having taken an estimated 10,000+ cans out of the feeder over the past few years, they still managed to fill 6 bags, and there are plenty more still in there, sadly.

Overall, 45 bags of rubbish were collected, plus a car tyre. And 200 more NOx canisters were dropped off for ‘making safe’ and recycling as scrap.