24 April 2024
Fellfoot voices blog by Dylan Hardy, trainee with the North Pennines National Landscape team

I’m really happy to have had the chance to extend my time with the Fellfoot Forward scheme and to be able to help the rest of the team with some of the final parts of running the scheme. With only a few weeks left, our time at Hallbankgate hub has sadly come to an end, with our office supplies distributed back to the head office in Stanhope and boxes of leaflets taken home to prepare for distribution.

Since the planting season for this winter finished in March, we’ve drawn a line under the nine events we did this year. It’s been such a pleasure and a learning experience for me, and I’d like to thank every one of the volunteers I had the chance to work with, who stuck with me through all weathers and worked super hard week in and week out – thank you.

The Castle Carrock primary school project, which received a grant from the Fellfoot Forward community fund, is well underway, with huge transformations put in place by the teachers, parents, and students. One feature is the successful hedge-laying workshop which brought other volunteers in to help renovate the surrounding hedge, and learn about this century’s old land management practice. We have also laid the paths, cleared the beds, levelled the ground, planted and removed different trees and shrubs, renovated the willow tunnel, and installed some seating.

My traineeship has offered a great resource for my career development. I’ve had the chance to do an online woodland management course, in which I’m picking up information and resources on planning, threats, and sylviculture. I’ve also had the chance to learn from the North Pennines National Landscape’s woodland team, including a really informative ‘Woodland Constraint Checking’ session with one of the woodland officers. In addition to this, I’ve recently completed a foundation course in using QGIS, an opensource mapping tool. This was a very valuable experience, which has given me the confidence to continue using this tool with my work in the future.

Since the first group of young people from Carlisle Youth Zone (CYZ) completed the nurture through nature programme, we’ve had a second group finish their sessions too. After enjoyable activities at Cumbria Wildlife Trust’s Gosling Sike site, we received some great feedback from the kids as well as the chance to witness first hand the positive outcomes in their confidence, knowledge and compassion.

We’ve also celebrated the scheme with an amazing event at which volunteers, participants, and organisations came together to network and understand the breadth of impact that the Fellfoot Forward scheme and its partnerships have delivered. Standing up and explaining my role and experience as a trainee to the group was nerve-wracking, but I enjoyed being able to reflect on my perspective of the scheme and share it with others. I was also live on FellFoot radio, interviewing Castle Carrock students and CYZ members so listeners could hear their perspective on sound and nature.

With the close of the planting season as well as the wrapping up of the scheme, I’ve turned to previous trainee, and current access officer with the North Pennines National Landscape, Jack, to get my fix of outdoor work. We’ve recently installed a gate at Long Meg stone circle and also a stile along one of our slow trail routes in Kirkoswald. I’ve also integrated time into my work schedule to look for the next step in my journey, an exciting prospect, even though I’m sad to be leaving this role.