Ranger led family summer activities on Friday 2 August and Friday 16 August
Nature trails, crafts activities and games. No booking required.
Planting in Clowes Park on Sunday 4 August
Join us planting wildflowers in the Wildlife friendly orchard. All ages welcome and all materials and tools provided.
Weather! If the weather is severe enough to cause cancellation of the session, we have another session planned for 1 September.
Making a Woodland Walk in Clowes Park on Sunday 1 September
Join us and help create a short woodland walk in the memorial forest creating a safe bark path and adding planting that will make the area 'magical' over time. All ages welcome and all materials and tools provided.
Weather! If the weather is severe enough to cause cancellation of the session, we will advertise a replacement session as soon as possible.
The refurbishment of the play area will commence in early September and take around five weeks to complete.
Alternative children’s play areas are available at:
If you have any queries or questions, please contact the neighbourhood team at EastSalford.NMT@salford.gov.uk
Clowes Park is taking part in ‘No Mow May’. You will see areas of the park that are not mown by Sam and the team during May, contributing to this national campaign to help bees and other pollinators.
Meet the Salford Ranger Team and see how you can get involved with volunteering in Clowes Park and Salford and find out about possible training opportunities and summer activities.
RHS and Life4aLife will also be doing some gardening and planting that everyone is welcome to be part of.
Drop in anytime between 2pm and 4pm at the Life4aLife area.
Thanks to the 50 people from the community of all ages who came together to create a woodland pathway and planting on Sunday 14 April (plants helpfully donated by the RHS).
Next gardening taster session and planting day will be on Sunday 12 May – everyone welcome.
Thanks to all the families who planted flower bulbs in the Autumn, kindly provided by the RHS and Rangers Team - now in flower for everyone in the park to enjoy.
Join the Rangers and RHS to help with the horticulture on your local park.
Find out all about the gardening training course that we are planning to run later in Spring.
Email: rangers@salford.gov.uk
Everyone welcome no previous experience required.
Sam and the maintenance team have been removing some shrubs from a nursery and put them in the pond area. They are Fagrant Sweet Box (sarcococca ruscifolia).
In December, a draft play area plan was prepared by the council’s Greenspace team and shared with local park users at bulb planting sessions in the park, in the park noticeboard and at Broughton Hub as well as on this page. (See the December 2023 update below for a link to the plan and explanatory notes.)
Thank you to those of you who commented on the plan. All your comments were collected and considered and we have made some changes accordingly.
We are pushing the refurbishment along because we were lucky enough to be awarded an allocation from the UK Shared Prosperity Fund for park. This makes up most of the £85,000 budget available for the refurbishment and the orders need to be committed soon so that we don’t miss out. The next stage is to issue the amended plan to several companies for pricing, to get best value. The anticipated date for building the refurbished play area is around June, before the school summer holidays.
Great as it is to have secured this amount, unfortunately it is not enough to include at this stage some of the bigger items some of you suggested, such as a zip wire and a higher climbing frame with slide. These will have to be considered in the future, subject to more funds being secured. Your help in applying for extra funding would be valuable. Some play items that have passed the annual play safety inspection are therefore being retained. All the safer surfaces are to be renewed in bonded rubber mulch.
To make the play area more accessible for all, the following additions and changes to the plan have been made following the consultation:
Look out for more updates on the refurbishment of this popular play area!
A huge thank you to the 70 children and families who helped plant:
In the Life for a Life memorial forest with the support of the RHS.
Wildflower Plug plants – these went in around the newly planted trees. 450+ Plugs in total of wildflowers Teasel, Scabious and Cow Parsley.
Seed mud Balls – the children made approximately 200+ of these to throw into the wildflower orchard area. The balls were compost mixed with clay powder and wildflower seeds. The seed mix used contained ten species of meadow grasses and 29 species of wildflowers including things such as Scabious, Hawksbit, Cowslip, Wild Carrot, Yarrow, Selfheal, Yellow Rattle and much more.
Sam and the greenspace team have also been looking after the park, planting trees and preparing the park for the spring and summer.
Thanks to Ka Leung Chan for sending in this photo of a tree being planted
All smiles from Sam and the greenspace team
On Wednesday 24 January, year 6 children from the Broughton Jewish Cassel Fox Primary School planted six fruit trees and sowed a range of wild flowers at the Life4aLife memorial forest with the support of the RHS. The ceremonial Mayor of Salford presented a tree planting certificate to the school.
Don't forget that the seed balls and tree planting is happening on Sunday 28 January (details below).
Help us spread wildflower seeds in the life for life memorial forest area in the park. We will show you how to make seed balls for spreading flower seeds – a fun family activity. Also help us plant some fruit trees and a wildlife hedge.
Refreshments will be available.
Thanks to Life for a Life memorial forests and RHS for organising this event.
Weather!
If the weather is severe enough we have to cancel the event, we have 11 February planned as a back-up date (same activities, location and time)
If you have any queries, please email the Salford Council Neighbourhood - EastSalford.NMT@salford.gov.uk
The proposed improvements to Clowes Park Play Area includes the replacement of old play equipment, installation of new equipment and the refurbishment of the existing.
Proposals to the adventure play area include the following:
Works to the older play area include:
Comments welcome – please email your thoughts and suggestions through to parks@salford.gov.uk by 2 January 2024.
Bulb planting took place on Sunday 10 December. We had a fantastic turn-out, with more than 40 volunteers helping to plant 2,000 spring bulbs. Thank you to everybody for coming along.
Sam and the grounds team have been clearing vegetation around the lake to let more light in and encourage new growth. The shrubs have been cut right back to allow them to flourish. This will also make the back area of the park feel safer.
The team will also continue to work this week on the top corner of the park (near the bridge) to open it up in the same way.
The council infrastructure team have put new netting on the play area after it damaged earlier in the year.
A huge thanks to everyone who came out in the Autumn sunshine yesterday – over 100 people planted 3,000 spring bulbs in the park. Supported by the RHS, Life4aLife memorial forest, the council's Rangers and Health Improvement Team and the Number One Youth Club.
Weather permitting there will be a second spring bulb planting day on Sunday 19 November at 2pm.
Help plant bulbs for a beautiful display next spring and see what other free activities we have on offer. Take away with you a small pot of crocus to grow at home. Also a chance to add to the conversation around what you would like from the park.
Please save the date, join us and share with friends and family.
Salford Rangers Service and the great team at RHS Bridgewater (aka Andy) will be co ordinating the session.
If you have any queries, please email the Salford Council Neighbourhood - EastSalford.NMT@salford.gov.uk
Sam and the team have cleared the area around the memorial birch trees and plaque in the park and the team at Life for a Life have reaffixed the plaque in place.
Sam and the team have provided more ‘cushion fall’ protection in the play area:
This is the park maintenance plan that Sam and the team are working to maintain and improve Clowes Park:
Sam and the grounds maintenance team have painted the playground railings at Clowes Park – don’t they look colourful?!
Following recent inspections and recommendations on safety, we have had to address the condition of the historic red brick wall that separates the play areas and the Life for a Life memorial forest.
As it is historic to Clowes Park, we looked at how we could keep the wall without it imposing a health and safety risk. The recommendation was to take down the top one metre of the wall and restore the remaining wall, which has now been completed.
An additional benefit of lowering this section of boundary wall is that lines of sight into the memorial forest are improved. Much of the anti-social behaviour reported takes place here and this enhanced visibility will assist park patrols and self-policing.
If you have any comments or wish to share your thoughts on how we can work together to improve Clowes Park, you can email us at EastSalford.NMT@salford.gov.uk
Please let us know if:
Call us: 0161 793 2500 (or 0161 794 8888 evenings and weekends if urgent)
Tell us on Twitter: @SalfordCCHelp
If you witness a crime please inform the police on 101
A workshop was held on Monday 6 February at Broughton Hub to carry on conversations about how we can work together to make improvements to Clowes Park.
The workshop:
Many different viewpoints were expressed and although not everyone shared the same vision, we are hopeful that the interest groups proposed (outlined below) will soon make some tangible improvements to the park and follow up on the areas of interest.
There was interest in:
To progress these areas of interest, we will be setting dates shortly for everyone to come together to discuss further.
This page was last updated on 23 July 2024