Hanging Heaton Golf Club swapping putting for planting in a bid to help the environment

Hanging Heaton Golf Club received the donation from the UK’s largest conservation charity after persistent persuasion from the club’s vice captain and greens chair.

Ian Kilburn, 60, wrote to the Woodlands Trust after a number of 50-year-old trees needed to be cut down due to safety measures, leaving space across the course.

Mr Kilburn, who has been involved at the White Cross Road club, which has around 250 members, for the past 10 years, said: “I thought we could support the environment a little bit so I wrote to the Woodlands Trust saying we want to help the environment and put some trees back into this world and they basically said no, you can’t have any of our nice trees.

“I wasn’t prepared to give in, so I said we’re involving communities, schools, ladies groups, volunteers coming in to help plant them; I told them we’ll take lots of photographs and you can promote them on your website.

“They said, ‘Congratulations Mr Kilburn, you have won your trees!’ They came at the start of November and we have already planted 300 of the 420.

“We have bought another 300 hawthorne trees for hedge wildlife, birds, hedgehogs and rabbits who can all live in hedges on the perimeter of the course and it will give more character to the course.

“It’s good for the community to support these projects and, hopefully, the Woodlands Trust will say, ‘Yes, you did a great job for us last year, here are another 120 trees, when do you want them?’

“I want to build a good relationship with them. It’s networking and doing something which I think is good for the environment.

“All you hear about is COP 27 and the depleting Arctic Circle and Antarctic Circle and global warming and floods. If we can do our little bit from our little club to try and repair that, then great. We want to improve the ecology. We are a friendly little club and we want to grow and be part of the community.”

And with some of the newly planted trees now lining the fairways of the course, Mr Kilburn, who lives in Roberttown, admitted the difficulty rating of some of the holes will get harder as the trees grow over the years.

He said: “It will make it harder for those who can bray it 350 yards into a nice safe area. Now they are going to have to bray 350 yards into a much tighter area where Ian Kilburn’s trees are!

“It makes it more competitive!

“The oak trees that we’ve put in - as sturdy as the oak, I think the phrase used to be - will live to around 500 years. They will grow from little acorns and by the time they become big I’ll be long gone!”