Weeding blitz

One of the key issues that the students raised with the Student Community Wardens was due to the rapid growth in weeds as a result of the recent warm weather earlier this year.

Rory Cunningham, Community Liaison Officer from the University of Exeter led the 'Weeding Blitz' team  with help from Student Community Wardens, Student Community Action volunteers, Cllr Kevin Mitchell and Exeter City Council's Sally Fryer.

Cllr Mitchell was very pleased with the results. He said "This event shows what can be achieved when the University and the Council work together. We all very much enjoyed clearing the area and I was very pleased with how the streets looked after the event. We were all quite tired when Dennis the Dustcart came to take the weeds away but his smiley face made it worthwhile. I hope that similar events will occur again in the future."

Local residents also responded positively to the Weeding Blitz noting a huge improvement on last year.
 
Additional requests for assistance in other streets have been received and plans are already being made for second Weeding Blitz in the St James ward. 

Rory Cunningham, Community Liaison Officer, said, “The Blitz provided a great opportunity to collaborate and showcase the proactive work of the student volunteers registered with ’Community Action’ and the ongoing work of our Student Community Wardens. This event has also provided a great 'taster' for the large scale refuse collections currently being made as part of the 'Students on the Move’'.

The Weeding Blitz was supported by the University’s ‘StreetWise’ fund, a grant that supports community projects that help improve relations between student residents and permanent residents.

For queries about the fund or to make project suggestions please call Rory on 01392 726252 or email streetwise@ex.ac.uk