Jubilee Park and Nature Trail, East Williamston

East Williamston is a small village of 63 houses just off the Kilgetty to Pembroke road in Pembrokeshire. In 1991 SPARC (the forerunner of PLANED) undertook a survey of the village to establish what the inhabitants felt they wanted and needed. The returns showed priority requests for recreational open space for people to use (as the village was surrounded by privately owned fields) and a play area for the children.

It was, however, 9 years later that the Community Association, worried by the problems of fly-tipping and encroachment of non-native plants such as Japanese Knotweed, reclaimed the small area of common land, about 1.5 acres, in the centre of the village. The group was very restricted as to what it was allowed to do on common land, whose close proximity to the road made it unsuitable for the children's play area, so members decided to look into the possibility of buying the adjoining fields. Here they had a stroke of luck, as the landowner was planning to retire and was amenable to selling some acreage for the good of the community if funding could be found.

The Association's secretary, Ian Wilkinson, took the lead on the project and the first thing he felt needed to be done was to meet others who had experience of similar projects. At a PLANED event he met an Environment Wales Development Officer, whose advice led to the project being officially registered in December 2002.

The Development Officer worked closely with the group on grant applications to Enfys and Environment Wales. These were successful and allowed the Community Association to purchase the first piece of land and start on the tree planting and paths. Buoyed up by this success, the Committee went on to make several more grant applications and support from the Aggregates Levy allowed it to secure more land, making the total about 15 acres.

Funding has also come from Land for Learning, PLANED, The International Tree Foundation, Pembrokeshire Community Regeneration Scheme, Pembrokeshire Association of Volunteers, the Community Facilities and Activities Programme and Action Earth.

So, after almost 3 years of work on the ground, the Association has established 1.5 km of footpaths and boardwalk (all suitable for wheelchairs), and has planted 6,500 trees and shrubs to create 600 metres of additional hedges and 6 acres of woodland. It has also established a pond, 3 acres of wetland, 2 acres of wildflower meadow and 2 acres of parkland. Some of the woodland has been designated a Family Tree Woodland, run with the International Tree Foundation, and here people can pay to have a tree planted to commemorate a person or an event. This area will be established gradually over time.

This year the Community hopes to see the project completed. It still requires the funding for a Children's Adventure Trail; a problem with the paths' surface washing off needs to be addressed and the small length of bridal way on the land is to be reinstated. Interpretation panels, picnic tables and benches will be installed and work on all the kissing gates completed.

This project has been remarkable in its scope and what the volunteers have managed to achieve in a few short years. The trees, all planted by volunteers, are already starting to look like a young wood. The wildflower meadow came very close to reducing the Environment Wales Development Officer to tears last autumn; it was so beautiful and so unexpected when she had seen intensively grazed rye grassland the autumn before.

The area is well-used by the locals and a small car park allows those from surrounding villages to benefit too. We were all very proud when the project won the Action Earth Green Welly Award, run by the Environment Agency, for the best rural project in the UK 2005.

This project will leave a lasting benefit, not only to the community but also to the nature conservation of East Williamston, for generations to come.

Ian Wilkinson would be pleased to share his experiences with other groups, please contact him by email first on wilkinson_linda@hotmail.com