Hounslow Park Friends Forum Holds First Meeting
Independent group represents volunteers helping maintain local open spaces
Friends of Thornbury Park with Councillor Tony Louki
|
July 25, 2023
The inaugural meeting of the Hounslow Borough Park Friends Forum has been held this month.
Resident volunteer groups who help protect and maintain local green spaces came together for the first time having decided to operate independently of the council.
Previously a Friends forum had existed, but it was led by the council. Following the example of similar groups in other boroughs, members voted recently to become independent, so they can organise meetings themselves and steer the direction of the Forum.
Representatives of the various groups gathered last week at West Thames College’s Banks room.
John O’Brien, Chair of Friends of Thornbury Park said, “The council is fully supportive of this move, and we are very grateful that it has agreed to continue to fund environmental charity Habitats & Heritage to help new Friends get established and to support the forum in convening and organising meetings. The importance of our parks and green spaces for people’s physical and mental health was very apparent during the pandemic."
Vanessa Smith from Friends of Northcote Nature Reserve added, " A lovely local park is a terrific resource for the whole community. Families on low income can entertain their children and spend happy times together, people can take exercise and engage with nature. They bring people of all ages and backgrounds together supporting community cohesion. Our parks will make a key contribution to the council’s nature recovery plan and efforts to tackle climate change. It’s an exciting time to be involved in shaping how they are managed.”
There is likely to be a Friends group for your local park and a full list of those currently active in the borough is available here.
If you would like to set up a group for a park that doesn’t have one contact Habitats & Heritage by email at groups@habitatsandheritage.org.uk.
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We've always done that and won't be changing, in fact we'd like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you'd like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |
