For our latest working party we chose a hot bank holiday weekend, which was probably not the most sensible. However this urgent decision was taken as at the time there was a large number of shopping trollies and scooters dumped in the pond. However Environment Agency staff had removed them before we turned up, so saving us a lot of hard work – phew!. We also decided that with the island very overgrown it was not safe to go on there. 

However we still had plenty of tasks to be done – and we achieved the following — 

• Collected 4 large bags of rubbish, including a number of golf balls, tennis balls and two footballs
• Cleared two large piles of undergrowth and saplings from around the weir end (see ‘after’ photo below).
• Partly cut back an overhanging buddleja bush near the concrete ramp. This has been trapping some pollution from upstream for some time (see above images). 

Our next scheduled working party will take place on a weekend sometime in November, when we hope that the vegetation will have died back and we can safely work on the island. If you wish to get involved please Email. You can find out more about Glassmill, and our project to refurbish it HERE.