Woodland and forest school to be created on bowls club sites

Melton Indoor Bowls Club is repurposing the old greens – adjacent to its HQ off Leicester Road – into a haven for wildlife with hundreds of trees plus facilities for petanque, bowls and croquet.

And Melton Learning Hub has bought the old practice area to transform it into the forest school, which will be available for schoolchildren and community groups to use.

The bowls club also hopes the new features will help to lessen flooding issues at the site – it had to close for three days in January during the most recent floods.

Martin Cooke, chairman of Melton Indoor Bowls Club, told the Melton Times: “We are creating an open space area for members and for local community groups to use.

“We’ve already planted 200 trees and more will be planted.

"The aim is to replace the old clubhouse with a new building as well.

“It is a three to five-year project but hopefully people can start using it by the end of this summer.”

Funding has come from grants and online appeals while the Woodland Trust donated 100 trees.

Galliford Try, which is building the town bypass, is providing 100 tonnes of soil from their excavations to use on the bowls club project.

And local contractor ATV Contract Services is giving free labour to help with landscaping and reprofiling the land.

The indoor bowls club has 570 members, aged seven to 95, and it hopes to gain more social members through having the new outdoor area.

Melton Learning Hub is pressing ahead with the forest school, which is hoped will be open by July, with a new wooden classroom and workshop being built.

it will be fully accessible so wheelchair-users can attend sessions and benches will be provided across the site.

Football goalposts and facilities for badminton and archery will be available plus pursuits like outdoor noughts and crosses and chess.

Other features include a raised vegetable bed and a fire pit, with the adjacent Edendale Brook being fenced off.

The aim will be to create habitats for wildlife, including a variety of birds and other animals.

Learning hub manager, Sarah Cox, told the Melton Times: “Our students will love it and we want it to be used by schoolchildren and everyone in the community.

"This place will be unique in the town.

"We want to give all young people in Melton somewhere to do forest school activities and to sit around a camp fire.

"You don’t get a chance to do these things if you are in a wheelchair but they will here.”

One of the groups looking forward to using it is Melton Mencap, which supports 100 children and adults with learning disabilities.

Nigel Bishop, an assistant leader and support worker with the organisation, said: “The children are so excited about coming here.

“All we have at present is a yard for them to go out in so this will be great for them.

“It will be somewhere for them to burn off energy and learn lots of new things about the environment and see all the wildlife.”