The Friends of Maghull& District (FOMD) are immensely grateful to all the following for their kind and generous support at Rowlands Dell (adjacent Hare & Hounds Pub and Medical Centre):

Maghull’s Largest Green Grant Funded Landscaping. Richard England and his landscaping team who have been travelling all the way from Saddleworth every day for the last two months have now completed our NHS partnered £80,000 grant funded hard landscaping today, allowing our patient community to access the health and wellness features (sunken garden, picnic viewing area, accessible circular path and planting) that will benefit the community and wildlife. Their work, support and warmth has been exemplary in equal measure. They will be popping back to finish one or two items over the next week. ROWLANDS DELL IS OPEN!!
Four Improvised Donated Seats and Rocks. Following a chance encounter at another project Jenny and her husband Ian from Liverpool Road South amazingly donated four unused gabion cages and Cotswold rocks, that we are currently installing by filling the cages with rocks and obtaining recycled plastic wooden affect planks to form rustic seating throughout the newly installed pathway.
More Rock Donations. Today we received another generous donation of a huge agricultural bag of rocks from Mr and Mrs John Fay (formerly of the Bar du Fay in Maghull), kindly organised and bagged by the super friendly and thoughtful Peter and his team (Woodland Landscaping) and delivered unbelievably for free with considerable skill by the Maghull Firwoods Timber Merchants team with a huge lorry and hiab. The rocks will be enormously helpful to fill the remaining gabion seating and for the creation of a shallow pond/bog garden for wildlife.
Water Feature, Path & Water Butt. Neil McMahon (senior project manager/Ranger – The Conservation Volunteers) kindly attended this afternoon and donated a new water butt which will be invaluable for the new planting and took measurements to cost and plan two water features utilising the recent £8000 donation from Morrisons. He also explored the creation of a path to connect the new viewing area with the new circular path.

Background.

Rowlands Dell is an historic quarry that has become a beautiful haven for nature but has become overgrown and treated like an open tip for 30 years. Which has made it harmful to humans and wildlife alike, whilst its neglect was a potential magnet for developers in our town where every green space is a target for building. Consequently, following three years of planning a three-stage plan was established by the Friends of Maghull and District (FOMD) and NHS partners and landowners.

Stage I, resulted in dedicated FOMD volunteers undertaking 46 consecutive weekly sessions to remove 266 bin bags of rubbish and 25 tons of debris which was tenaciously locked in by beautiful yet dominant invasive and destructive Ivy.

Stage II, has remarkably involved our NHS partners successfully obtaining an £80,000 health and wellness fund never used in the north-west before and a successful £8000 Morrisons grant application undertaken by FOMD and partners TCV which was a highly competitive national 125^th anniversary fund. Consequently, the NHS partners – Groundworks commissioned their landscape architect design plans, obtain planning permission, identified Richard England landscapers through a tendering process. The landscapers have temporarily closed the site for two months for insurance purposes and commenced the eight weeks of work on the 17.9.24, involving hard and soft landscaping.

Stage III: will involve further fundraising to repopulate Rowlands Dell with further woodland trees, shrubs, planting to enhance biodiversity within this natural haven.

A brilliant day that marks the opening of Rowlands Dell and will now enable the Friends of Maghull & District (FOMD) volunteers to undertake the exciting stage three which involves the replanting with woodland trees and plants throughout.

Happy Days,

FOMD CIC

Together Making Maghull a better place to live.

More information at:

FOMD www.fomd.co.uk

TCV www.tcv.org.uk/

Contact: admin@fomd.co.uk

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