Chairman and Secretary of Friends of West Park, Ken Robson and Arun Chandran along with Andy Anderson meet every Sunday at 9am to litter pick Woodham Burn adjacent to the Park, then at 10am litter pick the whole of West Park.
Around 11am they enter the top lake and spend a few hours raking out the algae and pond weed finding that using an ordinary lawn rake is the most effective method. They capture most of the weed and algae drain it ready for lifting out onto the side in tidy piles for Council Staff to collect.
At the present rate it will take about eight more Sundays a couple of hours each time to clear the Top Lake and when complete should be easy to maintain thereafter. The volunteers will then turn their attention to the bottom lake.
Great care is taken to observe health and safety to protect the volunteers and the Council. The hard work, is good exercise and once you’ve recovered you feel better for doing it as well as completing a good deed.
Once autumn is over it will be necessary to flush both lakes dry and remove debri from the lakes. This might also encourage the Ducks to migrate to safer land so that Ducklings survive as most do not, due to attacks by other ducks and sea gulls as well as stupid individuals
More volunteers are required to help with the work. “If just ten people turned up with rakes and waders we could probably do a lake in a day!” said Arun Chandran.
