Community Tree Planting Project – Raith SUDS Ponds

24 March 2024

Scottish Roads Partnership assist with Community Planting of 1,000 new native trees & shrubs

Community Tree Planting Project – Raith SUDS Ponds – March 2024

Over 4 days in March 2024, Bothwell Canopies Horticultural Group & Grow Uddingston Tree Team planted over 1,000 new trees on land to the west sector of the M74 & A725 at Raith Interchange, at various locations, near Bothwell. The community group reached out to the trunk roads operator Scottish Roads Partnership (SRP), who granted them permission for the planting to be carried out and identified three areas around sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDs ponds) and flood attenuation areas, which would improve the look of the landscape for future years to come. In addition, SRP also provided some much needed volunteers from both their Operating & Maintenance contractor Amey and their landscaping contractor Houston Landscape. Each company provided a group of 6 to 7 volunteers for each of the two days that it took to carry out the difficult ground works in preparation for the weekend’s community tree planting event. This involved digging out hundreds of 12 inch deep holes across open ground and grassland. Thanks to their efforts the local residents of Bothwell & Uddingston turned out in high numbers over the weekend that followed to plant small tree whips (native trees & shrubs) in the three locations agreed.

Afterwards, Terry Taylor thanked SRP, Amey & Houston for their important contribution to the project saying: ‘Thank you very much for your assistant during the tree planting exercise at the Raith and I am pleased that your team were able to utilise the facilities at the Hub in Bothwell for their lunchtime break. The holes they dug were executed to a high engineering standard and helped greatly with the subsequent tree planting operations.’

Harry Marsh added: ‘This project has been a huge success. Thanks to the community organisers Terry Taylor, Michael Hart and SRP’s Operations Manager Graham Drummond, for all their hard work, planning and organising this complex project. Also, a big thanks to all the volunteers who took part in the tree planting. For me, my illness prevented me from getting involved. My recovery is going well. Perhaps next year, I will be able to take a more active part.’

Scottish Road Partnership’s Graham Drummond stated: ‘I would like to personally thank everyone involved over the last 4 days. A special thanks to the guys within Houston Landscape and Amey, who did the hard work in preparing the holes for all the volunteers to do the tree planting over the weekend. All the volunteers from Bothwell Futures, Brighter Bothwell and others along with youngsters from Community Payback completed the planting with a total of 1040 trees planted at the Raith SUDs pond and the Flood Attenuation areas.

A special thanks to Harry Marsh, for coming out over the weekend to support, what was his idea to start, so I thank him for coming forward to SRP and supporting this initiative.

I look forward in the coming years for these trees to grow and flourish in supporting the biodiversity in this area.

Really well done everyone and thank you all again, for your hard work and support.’

Ends