Shropshire Star

Severn Valley Country Park gear up for a successful year

It has enjoyed a dry, warm summer – and the memorable visit of Flying Scotsman – but today staff at Severn Valley Country Park say they are determined to make 2017 an even more successful year.

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The attraction, which sits alongside the Severn Valley Railway, is planning a record number of events for the next 12 months.

Edward Andrews, parks and countryside officer, said: "It's been a good year, we've had a busy year, we put on more events than ever before plus activities for children. We've had a really big trail run in the summer and that raised quite a lot of money for the park, about £2,000.

"We're doing a bigger version of it later this year, and we've just opened the entries, it's a real positive thing as it's good to get people out exercising.

"For Flying Scotsman at the Severn Valley Railway we had a lot of visitors, as there's such beautiful views of the line. A lot of people parked up and walked down to see the train.

"We opened extra fields for the parking – it was a real success for us, as there was lots of new visitors to the park." The park was also awarded the Green Flag Award, a national standard for parks, for the 13th year.

Mr Andrews added: "We're one of the parks that has had the award in consecutive years for the longest, that was a real positive for us."

Throughout the winter months, the park is quieter, so volunteers undertake essential maintenance work.

Mr Andrews said: "We do a lot of woodland management work as we can't do it in the summer when the birds are nesting. There's quite a few volunteers in working with that project.

"They're also step-building and creating paths through the woodlands.

"We also look at managing the meadows that are in bloom in the summer, and clearance work as everything's growing.

"We've got about 200 nest boxes so there's volunteers checking them and doing repairs ready for the nesting seasons taking off in February.

"We've got a couple of big events we're planning for the summer, the first is the Severn Valley Trail Run.

"The following week on June 17 we've got a haymeadow festival.

"It's a wildflower meadow covered in wild flowers. As it's quite a rare habitat people travel a long way to get photos. We'll have craft stalls, hopefully some vintage tractors and live music to celebrate the meadow."

For more information visit new.shrop shire.gov.uk/severn-valley-country-park

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