It was tree planting day at Oakington today when volunteers were invited to support the planting of a new wood on Cambridgeshire ‘county farm’ land to celebrate 100 years of Cambridgtshire’s county farms. The plot at Oakington will eventually be home to over 8000 trees and shrubs.

This new wood, maybe Oakington Wood, will take some years to mature and as a guide the other local woods, Girton Wood and Impington Wood are both about 15 years old and showing signs of some maturity. However these woods are for the long term and the plantings include oak trees which will take decades before they look like mature trees.

Oakington Wood lies close to the parishes of Girton and Histon in the corner defined by Gatehouse Lane in Histon and Cambridge Road, Oakington and its planting was a true community event with upwards of a 100 people there at one time in the morning. The scouts and guides were much in evidence and many volunteers didn’t content themselves with just one tree but becamse serial planters!

David showed up between showers and in totally inappropriate footware to plant his tree. He said: ‘This is a splendid development and it was good to see the community out to support it. There were volunteers from all 3 parishes and representatives of the district and county councils. I shared a spade with Simon Edwards, conservative district councillor from Oakington, and recognised Douglas de Lacey, independant district councillor from Girton.’