The Wilderness

Jan 19 2010 - Glen Harding, Alison Sen, Matthew Morey, Claire Briggs

Woohoo This is my first ever foray into the world of blogging. For a person who doesn't even facebook this is a big deal, but I thought it would be a great way to share with you all just what is happening.

So the Wilderness in Hampton Wick has been there for ages, but for the last 10 years has been neglected, and as a woodland, it needs to be managed.

Heidi came and asked me to produce a plan and have it costed within a week if I remember rightly. I did point out to her that I had 3 children under 8 and that one of them was still with me all the time but anyhoo one week later and a little bit tired from all night stints of drawing and crumpling up paper we had a plan.

Some friends of mine Richard and Graham (Landscape Contractors) kindly came a long and gave us a vague quote and all of this was just to secure the funding for the project from the council. Pheweee!!

Anyway we secured funding and then it really started. We had 8 meetings with various groups and interested parties from the 7th of November and the 8th of December 2009.

These included:

Me - Garden Designer and Mum (Interest - Not destroying the ecosystems and creating something special)

Heidi Johnson-Paul - Head Teacher of HWINS (Interest - making it as safe and educational)

Richard and Graham - Contractors - looking at site and job for quote.

Alison Sen - Richmond Ecology Officer (Main interest - the site as a whole)

Alison Fure - Richmond Ecology Officer (Main Interest - bats and large mammals)

Richard Pain - Architect (Dad at the school and some kind of Govenor)

Glen Harding - Richmond Arboricultural Manager (Main interest trees and loss of habitat)

Simon Rose - BCTV (British Conservation Trust Volunteers)

Alex Robb - London Wildilfe Trust

Claire Briggs - Richmond Council

There were lots of people with lost of agendas and I was finding it difficult to work out where we went from here.

But over Christmas I asked for all the interested parties to get together and let us know what the priorities were for the work to go forward.

Jan 19th 2010 we had a meeting with Glen, Alison Senn, Claire and Matthew Morey (school Govenor and Project Manager) with myself there (Heidi couldn't come as there was an ofsted inspection also happening at the same time.)

We decided that we needed a newts survey in the pond and a date for tree works to start. Woohoo we can move forward!!!