(You're) Welcome to Sandwell Valley Country Park

The last 3 months have seen an unprecedented assault on the trees and bushes at Sandwell Valley.

Sandwell have felled thousands of trees in Sandwell Valley during the last 6 or 7 years, but the last 3 months has seen the most concentrated and most widespread devastation yet.

The above photos show the former solid block of trees and shrubs at one end of Swan Pool having  been razed to the ground. For the entire length of the Pool, almost all of the vegetation is gone. A tractor with attachments has been grinding away at the last vestiges of  plant life and the area is reduced to soil level.

The internal pathway which runs parallel to Park Lane, most of which was 'surfaced' last year, now has nothing between it and Park Lane (above) for most of its length, most trees and all low level vegetation having been removed. It was always possible to hear passing traffic - now you can see it as well -- and a barbed wire topped fence on the other side of the path.

And the above refers to only 2 locations at the Valley, There are many more where chunks of woodland have become flat ground in the last 2 or 3 months and where mature trees and underlying vegetation have been wiped out.

Horrific is the word.

Most of the recent clearance work has been carried out by contractors, and they certainly went at it with enthusiasm. But there are 3 other groups of people (that I know of - there may well be more) who devote their time to cutting down trees and shrubs. There are the Community Pay-Back people (as long as the weather is OK); a band of local volunteers who hack around under the supervision of the Sandwell Rangers, and there is another small outfit who's minibus claims to be en route to a brighter environment - or something like that.

With so many organisations engaged in cutting things down at Sandwell Valley, it is hardly surprising that the place is melting away like the snow in sunshine.

And why do I care?

Well quite apart from the fact that it was the only place remotely like unspoilt countryside anywhere near Birmingham, it pretty much reflected my life.

As a boy, I was brought to Sandwell Valley with my brother and we played there and looked at the animals. Later, I took my girl friend there, and after she became my wife, our children went to play and look at the animals. Even when she was quite ill, we used to go for walks every Sunday morning from the Sandwell Park Farm car park. And now her ashes are laid there beneath a tree which Sandwell planted for me.

So when I see a landscape, familiar to me for decades, being ripped apart and destroyed in just a few short years, I see not only the end of a lovely thing, because it can now never be replaced, but I see much of  my life has disappeared as well.

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