Parks are among the best in UK

Brinsley Headstock Open space has been awarded a prestigious Community Green Flag alongside Sandy Lane and Alexandrina Plantation and the Old Church Tower, Bramcote.

Both Bramcote Hills Park and Colliers Wood have also retained their Green Flags to further highlight the work done to maintain parks and green spaces in the Borough.

The Green Fag awards recognise and rewards the best parks and green spaces across the country. A Green Flag is a sign to the public that the space boasts the highest possible standards, is beautifully maintained and has excellent facilities.

Coun Mick Brown said: “We are absolutely delighted to receive a Community Green Flag Award for Brinsley Headstocks Green Space for first time from Keep Britain Tidy.

“I also want to thank the volunteers who have been part of this process and who have worked so hard to protect our local heritage and to help us achieve this.

“This Award recognises and highlights that local people in Broxtowe are benefitting from parks and green space of the very highest quality right across the Borough.”

The Friends of Brinsley Headstocks was formed in 2008 and is a voluntary community group who help to maintain and develop Brinsley’s old mining site.

They work in partnership with Broxtowe Borough Council and other groups to develop the area as a heritage and local nature reserve, an amenity for the community and a focus for the mining and literary heritage of our area.

The mine in Brinsley stopped production in 1934 when the coal reserves were exhausted. The mine shafts remained open for another 36 years to provide access to neighbouring pits.

The Headstocks were removed from the site in 1970 after 98 years in service and taken to the National Coal Museum at Retford. They were returned and re-erected on the original site in 1991 when the Coal Museum closed.

The site then became, along with the old mineral railway line, a picnic and leisure site.

The Mayor of the Borough of Broxtowe, Councillor Sue Bagshaw was one of the first to congratulate the local volunteers when she visited the site to celebrate the work of the group.

Many of the Green spaces also have voluntary support groups including the Bramcote Old Church Tower

Volunteers have been working since 2004 to restore and repair the Grade II Listed building, affectionately known as the ‘Sunken Church’, at the junction of Moss Drive and Town Street, Bramcote.

Overgrown shrubs have been cut back, a number of trees crown-lifted to provide more light to ground areas and grass is cut on a regular basis.

The Tower can now be seen to its best advantage, a focal point at the very centre of the village of Bramcote.

Colliers Wood was formed on part of the former Moorgreen Colliery deep mine complex. Landscaping followed open-cast coal extraction from the pits main production area. The landscape design concept was to re-create the typical landscape that was present prior to the first large scale mining operations of the area that began in 1865. This was interpreted as a composition of small native species copses set in grassland meadows. The brook that originally ran through the site was represented by two interlinked ponds.