The Transport Canberra and City Services Directorate (TCCS) used Volunteers Week last week to acknowledge the efforts of volunteers who help keep Canberra’s public places maintained and “looking great”.
Executive Branch Manager of City Presentation at TCCS, Stephen Alegria said the Urban Open Space Volunteer Program was a community partnership aimed at maintaining and enhancing urban open spaces.
“The program includes urban Landcare groups, friends of groups, urban open space volunteer groups, tree maintenance groups, graffiti removal and community art groups,” Mr Alegria said.
“There are 30 existing urban open space volunteer groups across Canberra. Some groups meet regularly while others meet on an ad hoc basis.”
He said the program allowed the community to contribute to the conservation, presentation and maintenance of Canberra’s many public urban open space areas including parks, playgrounds, grasslands, green spaces, creeks, wetlands and lake surrounds.
Mr Alegria said the program had yielded many great outcomes over the years, most recently with two successful weekends of planting by the Griffith Woodland Volunteer Group.
“The group, working with the Southern ACT Catchment Group, applied for an environmental grant in 2018 to significantly improve the natural values and biodiversity of their neighbourhood park in Griffith,” he said.
Convener of the group, Libby McCutchan said the woodland park was being improved based on a detailed plan completed by local landscape architect, Barbara Payne.
“The planting in the woodland has been a huge success, with more than a dozen volunteers planting over 300 tube stock of native forbs, lilies and grasses,” Ms McCutchan said.
She said it followed on from regular working bees to control weeds.
