An award-winning North Yorkshire conservation and disability charity is looking to grow its Wakefield volunteer team after receiving a four-figure grant from property firm The Banks Group.
Open Country has 35 years’ experience in successfully organising and leading countryside activities across the area and has enabled hundreds of people with a disability to access and enjoy the countryside.
The £1,000 Banks Group grant is covering the cost of essential repairs and maintenance work on the organisation’s fleet of grounds management equipment, while it will also pay for members of its growing local volunteer team to be trained how to use it.
And Open Country is now hoping that more local people will sign up to the near 200-strong volunteer team to help them take care of and enhance their various local environments.
Banks is the developer behind the new Hollins Bank residential development in Hemsworth near Wakefield, which will include 260 high-quality homes of different sizes and types.
The development will also facilitate the creation of a network of new footpaths and new wildlife habitats which will enhance local biodiversity and is close to the town’s Vale Head Park, where Open Country CIC volunteers have recently been planting trees and wildflower meadows.
Founded in 1990 and headquartered in Harrogate, Open Country has a hub at Thornes Park Nursery in Wakefield and recently opening a third office within the headquarters of the Tees Valley Wildlife Trust at the Margrove Heritage Centre near Saltburn-by-the-Sea.
It runs up to 26 different countryside activities every week, catering for a range of abilities, and has won multiple awards for its work, including the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service.
Its Nature Force group in Wakefield undertakes a wide range of valuable conservation and footpath repair work, including tree planting, scrub clearance, allotment work, meadow management, invasive weed control and litter picks.
David Shaftoe, chief officer at Open Country, said: “Our aim is to help people with disabilities across North Yorkshire and southern Teesside to access and enjoy the countryside, and we work in lots of diverse ways to make this happen.
“We already complete around 14,000 hours of work every year, planting around 6,000 trees, digging ponds and creating new footpaths which have a big impact on the ability of people with disabilities to sample more of the wonderful countryside that North Yorkshire offers.
“Our volunteer team is an essential part of getting all this work done, and we’d really love to see even more people digging in to help up undertake and complete our different projects around Wakefield and the wider area.
“Giving people the equipment they need to do these jobs and making sure it’s in good working order is clearly a key part of our work, and the funding we’ve had from Banks will help to ensure everything we need to provide is always at hand.”
Kate Culverhouse, community relations manager at the Banks Group, added: “The whole Open Country team is making a huge short and long-term difference to the North Yorkshire countryside and the people that love it, and we’re very pleased to be supporting their invaluable work.”
The Banks Group’s community funds are independently managed by charity and grant-making organisation Point North (formerly the County Durham Community Foundation).
Anyone from a community close to a Banks Group project who is interested in applying for funding from the Banks Community Fund should contact the company via its website enquiry form (www.banksgroup.co.uk/contact-us/) to find out if their group or project is eligible.