Spennymoor Division County Councillors, Liz Maddison and Pete Molloy, recently joined some residents of Newfield to take part in a community project by planting sustainable plants in the local park.
The community project took place on Tuesday 14 April was part of the wider project to enhance the appearance of the local for local residents by Durham County Council’s Clean & Green and Civic Pride team, which included the cleaning of the pavement flags around the war memorial, taking out thorn bushes, overgrown vegetation growing on the boundary fence, planting of bulbs to bring a bit of colour in Spring time, taking out self seeded trees, repainting of the metal goal posts and metal banisters.
One of the village residents, Mr Shawn Butcher, who brought his granddaughter along to be part of the community project said, “I’ve been a resident of Newfield village for 26 years and when DCC allocated funds for an improvement project for Newfield park, this was something I felt I had to be involved with for the village residents old, new and young.
“As it was the Easter school holiday I asked my granddaughter would she like to be involved in the planting, which she agreed and this would mean as the plants grew season by season she would be able to acknowledge her own input to the improvement of Newfield park.”
The projector to enhance Newfield Park was the idea of Cllr Pete Molloy, after he had identified a source of funding last year that would enable the whole project to go ahead.
Cllr Molloy said, “Due to the local boundary changes for last year’s local elections, there was still some funding available in the old Coundon Division’s Section 106 fund, which Newfield was part of prior to the boundary changes and I wanted the residents of Newfield to benefit from that money, which some of it went towards the cost of funding the project.
“I have been informed by a few of the village residents that they appreciate amount of work that DCC are doing in the village lately, which has encouraged some of them to voluntary keep on top of maintaining the appearance of their village.
“I would like to thank D.C.C.’s Clean & Green, Civic Pride team, Councillor Liz Maddison and the residents for helping with this project.”
Spennymoor's local community newspaper.
