The Very Reverend Jerry Lepine, Dean of Bradford, braved the bad weather at the start of December to join other members of the city’s faith communities in establishing a new urban forest in Bradford as part of the EcoCathedral project.
“This is part of an on-going project to reclaim an area that has suffered from historic pollution. [We’re doing this because] Bradford, as a post-industrial area, has fewer trees than other urban, suburban or rural areas, and so in the last twenty years there has been this huge project to [plant trees in] the Bradford area.”
The idea, which has transformed into an Interfaith project, has seen many groups planting trees in the reclamation area near Canal Road. The former allotments are slowly being transformed into what will eventually become an urban forest.
“It came as part of the [EcoCathedral] package of ideas that we began to work on together. We had this conversation with the council about ways we could play into the local area from an [environmental] point of view. This suggestion was made and it’s worked like a treat.”
Even bad weather on the Saturday didn’t deter those from coming down to support the project.
“It was very wet! But there was a steady trickle of people who came to plant their trees. I followed the chairman of the Synagogue, Dr Rudi Leavor, and later in the afternoon a group from a local Muslim project turned up.
“It’s a very exciting piece of reclamation alongside a path which is used regularly by dog-walkers and cyclists.”