Concord Independent Living Scheme

Spring 2023: Flying high with Concord by Tamsin Bent

After consulting with residents at Concord Assisted Living in Nailsworth, we received funding from the Big Lottery and the Build Back Better Fund (with support from Nailsworth Town Councillor Steve Robinson) to carry out work to improve Concord’s grounds for wildlife and to improve access to the outside spaces.

The project started in April 2022 and finished at the end of March this year. Over the past year, project officers Tamsin and Richard and their brilliant volunteers have been visiting fortnightly to work on fulfilling the residents’ wish list.

They built an accessible raised flower bed to allow residents to garden without bending down, plus steps and paths down to the stream; they installed three recycled plastic benches (one with a waterproof sail) and created lots of pollinator patches; they planted a few hundred native spring bulbs and five apple trees; and they put up nine bird boxes.

They also ran five workshops – milling wheat and baking it into bread, making straw Christmas decorations, painting birdboxes and willow weaving with willow worker Norah Kennedy to make two different types of bird feeder.

We’re hoping to go back and keep an eye on the progress of the site every few months as part of our Garden Guardians Project.

Autumn 2022: Concord takes off by Tamsin Bent

Since May, we’ve been working with residents from Concord Independent Living Scheme in Nailsworth to improve access to their wild spaces and to make their grounds better for wildlife. We’ve been visiting fortnightly, starting off by creating a test pollinator patch to see if the flowers would grow before planting more widely.

The flowers did amazingly well and even attracted passers-by to come down to take a closer look.

We’ve also been installing steps to allow residents to access a previously out-of-reach stream and a bench surrounded by native spring bulbs.

Over the winter, we plan to plant some local variety apple trees and we’ll also be running workshops for residents. In the spring, we’ll be out planting many more pollinator zones so that hopefully the previously empty grass patches will be abuzz with pollinators.