Friends of Hedgemead Park

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Achievements

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The Friends of Hedgemead Park (HPF) are proud to have facilitated or achieved many good things since we formed in 2019. Here are some highlights recorded over the last two or three years

  • Jan-Dec 2024. Committed over 830 volunteer hours throughout 2024 covering activities such as gardening, litter picking, meetings, communications and general administration. 
  • Nov 2024. Set up a ‘Friends of Green Spaces’ WhatApp group to promote cooperation and communication between green space community groups in Bath.
  •  Feb 2024 – Feb 2025. Hosted Duke of Edinburgh student volunteers from two local schools. Each student committed 12 hours of volunteering activities (e.g. gardening, litter picking & cleaning park infrastructure) as part of their DoE Bronze awards.
  • Oct 2024. Royal Horticultural Society and Britain in Bloom ‘Its Your Neighbourhood’ awards for 2024. HPF won Level 5 – Outstanding.
  • Aug 2024. Bath in Bloom 2024 awards, HPF won Silver-Gilt in the ‘Horticultural Achievement by a Group’ category.
  • Aug 2024. Hedgemead Park won the prestigious Green Flag Award for the sixth year running.
  • July 2024. Joint gardening session with Bath in Bloom and their sponsors, Mogers Drewett. Team numbered 18 volunteers.
  • Mar-Apr 2024. Membership campaign increased our membership numbers to 115 (107 individual, 8 Group), a 40% increase over the previous year.
  • Feb 2024. Your Park awards for 2023. HPF won Special Mention in the category ‘Community Connectors for the B&NES Area’.
  • Oct 2023. Our gardening group planted c.200 Daffodil bulbs in the beds behind the park’s bandstand.
  • Aug-Dec 2023. After liaising with the Parks Dept for over two years, the Council’s contractors carried out repair work to two of the park’s Grade 2-listed structures: the Victorian bastion tower and the gate and railings at the Margaret’s Hill entrance, damaged when a large tree fell in Oct 2021.
  • Jul 2023. Hedgemead Park was awarded a Green Flag Award for the fifth year running.
  • Jul 2023. Joint gardening session with volunteers from Bath in Bloom and their sponsors, Mogers Drewett. Team consisted of 14 volunteers in total.
  • Jun 2023. HPF were gifted a grant of £130 by Bath in Bloom for the purchase of a cordless strimmer, which is being used for light duty maintenance of our wildflower meadow, roundels and path edges.
  • Feb 2023. Organised by the Council’s Parks Ranger and Your Park, we hosted a hurdle-making workshop in the park, using Hazel and Willow harvested locally.
  • Nov 2022-Feb 2023. Hosted our first student volunteer as part of their DoE Bronze Award activity. Other students have since joined us in a similar capacity.
  • Nov-Dec 2022. Published a Merchandise page on our web site to support sale of items which help fund our activities. Examples include wooden artefacts crafted from the park’s recently fallen Holm Oak and an annual wall calendar featuring scenes from Hedgemead Park throughout the seasons.
  • Nov 2022. Engaged with Your Park Bristol & Bath’s initial launch of its ‘Parks 4 All’ initiative. Based on original YPBB research, it seeks to find ways to improve the experience for disabled people and their unpaid carers when using parks. The initiative will continue throughout 2023-24.
  • Aug 2022. Hedgemead Park was awarded a Green Flag Award for the fourth year running.
  • Jul 2022. HPF was awarded a grant by Quartet Community Foundation from the Wessex Water Environment Fund to improve the environmental impact of HPF’s gardening activities. The project was completed in Jan 2023 (see our Case Study).
  • May-Jun 2022. To celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, the Friends’ decorated the park’s Victorian bandstand with the Queen’s official emblem and embellished it with regal purple and cream drapes, and green foliage gathered from the park and surrounding area.