Volunteers of all ages have been busy making AMOS great for wildlife and people each month since March 2022 and local people tell us they have noticed and appreciate the difference.  We have noticed much less litter and glass here recently too.  Our younger volunteers are enthusiastic litter pickers and made friendly signs asking people not to drop litter.

It is good to be involving people in the newer part of Belper as most things go on in the town centre.  One nice surprise has been the number of families who come along to enjoy activities they can all do together, and which improve their local area.

Working with fellow Transition Belper project, Wilder Belper, we have sown wildflower seeds.  Thanks to the Alton Manor Scouts for helping with this too.  We’re working closely with AVBC who own and maintain AMOS and support our work in various ways.

We put down tiles for reptiles to shelter under and Derbyshire Wildlife Trust completed a survey, which yielded no reptiles.  This is good news in a way as it makes our planned task of ‘rewiggling’ the stream easier.  We hope there will be more after this work is carried out, hopefully in 2023, with the support of Trent Rivers Trust.  Funding and consents need to be in place before this can happen though.

We’ve cleared informal paths so people can explore and we’ve pulled up a lot of invasive Himalayan Balsam – though the heatwave sadly meant we couldn’t get it all before it set its seeds.  If you run a group who would enjoy a good easy and satisfying outdoor summer activity, we could do with lots of pairs of hands on this next year in June and July so do get in touch (via info@transitionbelper.org).

In October we distributed over 1000 leaflets locally inviting people to get involved.  We aim to include people of all abilities and ages, with no prior experience needed.  And we’ve recently got a banner which we put up while we’re working to encourage people to talk to us and get involved.

Transition Belper have been vital in getting this project off the ground and supporting it, as have Belper Town Council. Thank you!

By Julie Wozniczka