COUNCILLORS are keen to ensure that Wellington Town Council’s project to plant more than 3,000 trees over the coming weeks is recorded on film.

The council is working with the Woodland Trust to plant the trees in the area of land known as the Green Corridor.

This is an ambitious plan for the people, nature and climate of Wellington and Rockwell Green and a small army of volunteers is being mustered for special planting dates being held in the weeks ahead.

And Cllr Keith Wheatley wants to make sure that this project is recorded on film and can be used to promote Wellington and the initiative in the future.

Members of the council’s environment committee agreed on November 20 to support a request put forward by Cllr Wheatley to spend £850 on a film about its tree planting project.

“Wellington is really pioneering with this project,” he said. “This is also a significant scheme for the Woodland Trust.

“The Trust normally works with bigger organisations over bigger schemes and bigger areas, but is now working with us, a smaller town council and a smaller area, and that could be the way forward for the Trust to go.

“This is an important project and we need to record this on film and use it in the future to help promote Wellington and to raise awareness with the public about what is being done.”

Earlier in the meeting, a member of the public, Chris Penney, told councillors he thought it was not be the best way to spend £850 at a time when many people were struggling with the cost of living crisis and suggested that councillors could record things on their phones.

But Cllr Wheatley said: “There is a big difference between a 20-second clip on your phone that can be put on social media rather than a film and something a bit more professional.”

Cllr Sean Pringle-Kosikowsky, who was in favour of the film, said: “We want Wellington to be an aspirational town and we need to promote ourselves far more than just putting up posts on Facebook.

“The Woodland Trust will want to use us as an example and this film will be ideal.”

Cllr Mark Lithgow said that the £850 was a “drop in the ocean” in comparison to other projects being undertaken by the council.

But committee chairman, Cllr Mike McGuffie, said that they had to be careful as “drops in the ocean soon start to add up.”

Cllr Wheatley admitted that work on the film had already taken place with the Woodland Trust’s external affairs officer for the South West, Rosie Walker, having already been interviewed in an empty field in the Green Corridor area which will soon be planted with new trees. He said this was Rosie’s “I have a dream” moment.

The plans involve the planting of around 3,000 trees and shrubs in around two hectares of land on the Green Corridor which covers an area stretching from Tonedale to Hilly Head and includes The Basins nature reserve.