A YEAR of hard work has been celebrated at Paintings Plantation in Leamington.
The nature reserve at Campion School is maintained by students and retired volunteers from Age UK Coventry and Warwickshire.
Leamington mayor Sarah Boad toured the site to see what they have achieved.
The plantation is named after the late actor and countryman Norman Paintings, who played Phil Archer in BBC Radio 4’s The Archers for decades, and who helped plant the very first trees there back at the turn of the millennium.
He was patron of Age Concern Warwickshire until his death in 2009 and his ashes are
under some of the trees.
But in the intervening years the site became overgrown and inaccessible.
In 2017, Age UK proposed a scheme to regenerate and develop the plantation.
A band of retired volunteers cleared the undergrowth away and now each week meet to maintain the area so that others can use it.
In the course of a year, ten local primary schools have visited the reserve to pond dip as part of their curriculum.
The ECO club meets every two weeks after school with the Age UK volunteers to undertake various jobs including planting and looking after the vegetable plot.
And other school departments use the facilities as an outdoor classroom.
