Dursley Rugby Club – Tree Planting
Dursley Rugby Club – hedge / tree planting on land behind Village Hall
As you know, the rugby club purchased some land behind the village hall in late 2019 to allow us to improve our training facilities. Since then its development for sporting use has been delayed due to the pandemic, but we are now making progress with some of the things that we communicated with you at that time.
These are the plan to plant trees (that will develop into a hedge system) around part of the perimeter to improve the aesthetics, encourage more biodiversity, and provide greater privacy for neighbours; the plan to place underground the power lines that cross the land to improve the visual outlook, and also to make the area safe for sporting use; and to provide access to our land from the road down the track next to the Village Hall (this to provide access to the field behind Townsend Farm for the owner via our land, and also for us to be able to access our land safely).
We can now update you on these issues as follows:
- Tree / hedge planting: a condition of our permission to remove some old and poor quality hedgerows was that these be replaced around part of our perimeter (predominantly nearest the properties in Coombe Gardens and nearby).
These have been secured from the Woodland Trust and elsewhere according to the correct species mix, and we expect delivery of them in late February / early March. The intention is to arrange several planting sessions to take place during March – Sunday 20th March is the first planned date – using club members as well as any other volunteers who may be interested. If you or anyone you know would like to take part, please contact us. Any further details including dates will be shared when these are finalised.
- Power lines: we have now agreed a plan with Western Power to place the power lines underground, and we hope that the work for this will take place in late spring. This will result in some noise as we dig the trench and they bring machinery in to lay the lines, but we will minimise this as much as possible.
We will also arrange appropriate signage and safety measures for people using the footpaths that cross the land. We will let you know when we have details on dates and other arrangements.
- Track: it was also a condition of our permission that we should provide access to the field behind Townsend Farm via the track to the side of the Village Hall and then around our perimeter to enter that field.
We also need to be able to provide safe access and exit from our own land for any machinery needed for the above work, and also for any occasional overflow parking (as per our application this is allowed up to 10 times per year, and is part of our plan for managing car parking problems on a Sunday morning). To do this, we will be improving the surface of the track from the main road to behind the Village Hall. This work is planned to commence on Monday 7th February.
If anyone would like any further information on any of the above items please contact Simon Bilous, former Club Chair, who is now our Land Project Manager.
Regards and best wishes,
Phil Sprague, Club Chair, Dursley Rugby Club
