Over two years ago two couples from Park Avenue, Shoreham-by-Sea heard an inspirational talk at a meeting of the Shoreham Society about the planting of trees in the verges in Roslyn Road. They decided to test the feeling for this in their road and began speaking to some of their neighbours.
Unfortunately, COVID then struck and it no longer felt appropriate to knock on people’s doors uninvited. However, one good thing came out of the pandemic when one of the residents of Park Avenue set up a WhatsApp group to support the locals and in the autumn of 2020 the subject of the tree planting was brought up again. Luckily one tech-savvy resident volunteered to coordinate the project and by early spring 2021 fifteen trees of various varieties had been paid for.
Now we just had to wait for planting time
In early November a message was put on the WhatsApp group saying a man in our road was terminally ill and his daughter had asked West Sussex County Council if his tree could be planted soon so he would have the pleasure of seeing it. On November 12th his beautiful tree was planted much to his and his family’s delight. Then, to much excitement and acclaim, all fifteen of our fine specimen trees were also planted that day. Now we are proud to be a proper avenue.
Dictionary Definition: a road in a town, typically having trees at regular intervals along its sides.
Thanks to Andrea Smith for the story.
