This Saturday, husband-and-wife team Kate and Jack set off to show a little love at Love Lane Green. We had been told that the bushes had been cleared back as part of a police investigation revealing some litter underneath, but we weren't quite prepared for the scale of rubbish that had built up over what must have been years. We collected our litter pickers and bags and began clearing glass bottles from a little stream running along the edge of the site. We filled several bags, but there is still a lot left to do next time...

The three of us spent a lovely morning helping David and Amy and the other volunteers at Love Lane paint the long stretch of fence which the land owner erected!

Gone is the dreary grey railings and now after weekends of hard work by lots of volunteers and some kind GoodGym helpers the fences are nearly all scrubbed, primed and painted up 🎨 🌈

We had a lovely morning and have achey arms to show for it!

I met David from the Friends of Love Lane community group this morning and he explained why the fence needed painting. The area at the end of Love Lane has protected community status and has become a lovely park for the residents to take their kids. Unfortunately a developer has bought the land in the hope it can one day be built on and even erected a high metal fence around it in the hope of excluding residents from the park. The council and community group have arranged for painting supplies to be bought to jazz up the area and show that it is still a much-needed community area and defend the community status (hence the terrible pun).

David set me off painting some sections of the fence a sunny shade of yellow and we were soon joined by residents who lived locally. Almost every walker who passed us today commented on how great it was looking after the paint job and said what a nice difference it made.

This mission was a continuation of last week's where some goodgym-ers made a great start on painting the fence. David is confident more weekends will be needed so look out for the future missions!

Rainbow fence painting at love lane community gardens