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Stornoway Football Club 

It gets windy on Lewis and Harris in the Outer Hebrides! Matt Bruce, from the Point & Sandwick Recreation Association, tells us how free tree packs have helped create valuable shelter for his local football club on the Isle of Lewis.

Video length: 00:02:37

Free trees for communities 
Point Football Club and Stornaway Allotments, Western Isles 

>> Matt Bruce, Point and Sandwick Recreation Association and Lewis and Harris Horticultural Producers: 
The football pitch here has been used for the last 80 years. We can really just do with more and more shelter around the pitch here. We're exposed on all sides and in fact on our opening match that we had with the Junior Rangers team, it felt like November, but it was actually the middle of July. 

The trees came from the Woodland Trust with a bamboo pole and a clear plastic spiral for protection and it was a straight-forward thing. We got groups of people together, each of the three/four different times that we've had trees delivered, and so we turn it into a sort of party and then have soup and coffee afterwards to warm up. And I’d say the application process was very simple, straight forward. And then we got told that we were getting some. Occasionally we’ve had them in November, sometimes in February. We’re happy with planting either time actually, here. So, all in, we’ve planted close on 2,000 trees around the pitch here and we just enjoy getting the shelter.  

But at the allotments in Stornoway that we created some six years ago, we applied for some trees some two, two and a half years ago and we got 420 mixed, mainly deciduous trees, and we planted them around the outside of the allotments so that they will give us first of all shelter, but also to increase the, sort of, diversity of animal life around us. They changed the landscape and they can certainly make you appreciate the seasons an awful lot more.  

>> Barbara, Lewis and Harris Horticultural Producers: 
They arrived. They all came to my house and I was quite overwhelmed by it initially, but then we brought them all down here and then had a number of Saturday afternoon planting sessions which were good fun and, yeah, you can see the result.  

>> Matt: 
They’re growing slowly but this is Lewis so it’s a cool climate with quite wet ground, but they are growing nicely and we’re very happy and now hoping to plan for our apple trees in about five years’ time.