GMDT PROJECT LEAD: Dai Richards
Removing Tree Guards around Morpeth
In Spring 2025 Dai Richards in his capacity as Morpeth Litter Group / Keep Britain Tidy Ambassador and GMDT’s Environment director was asked by NCC’s Nicola Wardle if our volunteers “could help with removal of Tree Guards along the Morpeth Bypass between Whorral Bank roundabout and Fairmoor Roundabout”?
As is typical with our wonderful volunteers on 3rd March , 7 people came along and 8 people on 4th March and 8 people on 5th March. After a slow 1st day, in the 3 days over 2000 guards were removed! Everyone thought it was the one of the most difficult task they have ever done. Some were covered with cuts on the hands and head! We learned we had to get hard hats. Eye goggles, (all provided by NCC).
On 10th June – our volunteers returned, just amazing that they were not put off by the extremely difficult task – 12 people came along and 11th June 10 people came along. In just 2 days we cleared over 2500 guards.
After our summer holidays on 15th September, 9 people supported the clear-out and 8 people on 16th September. This time we hit the A1 slip roads at the North Junction to the Morpeth Bypass. Again over 2500 Tree guards removed.
On 13th October, 7 people came along and 14th October 8 people, getting experts now and we quickly removed over 2000 guards!
So far we have had 77 people come along and the team has completed over 211 hours with 9000+ guards removed – but there is so much more to do!
We will be returning each month to blitz these guards – these guards are not biodegradable, they are made of hard plastic which after 15 years are wrapped around the bushes / trees, are as strong now as when they were put around the young plants. The plants cannot grow and are being effectively strangled in some places.
When driving along the Morpeth Bypass between Whorral Bank roundabout and Fairmoor Roundabout see the difference with the horrible plastic guards removed.