Yesterday, ART delivered two seminar events to East Ayrshire Council. Commencing at 8.30am in the Lesser Town Hall, Cumnock, East Ayrshire staff were given an insight into managing Non Native Invasive Weeds and Biosecurity. Chris Horril from RAFTs was on hand to talk about new legislation and Biosecurity whilst Trust staff delivered presentations relating to good practice, recognition and control. East Ayrshire provided the venues and the delegates from many departments and importantly many groundcare staff were in attendance. A second seminar followed at 1.00pm at Dean Castle Auditorium in Kilmarnock.
The title slide from one of the presentations.
Both seminars were well attended (filled to capacity) with around 140 East Ayrshire Council staff hearing our message. The feedback received after the events was very positive and some managers recognised that changes to operating practices would contribute to improving East Ayrshire’s performance when dealing with these species. We are looking forward to working closely with EAC in future and will provide whatever support we can.
Gillian McIntyre and Chris Horril surrounded by many groundcare staff at the auditorium in Kilmarnock.
Our thanks to David Law and East Ayrshire Council for their support organising the event and throughout the day and for the excellent venues provided. Also many thanks to Chris Horrill from RAFTS for his valuable input. We hope to be able to run similar sessions for both North and South Ayrshire Councils in the near future.
would it be possible to run a seminar for angling clubs as I think it would be well attended and benifiscal to all parties? Is there going to be another weed killing coarse in the near futher?
Robin,
this will hopefully be on the agenda for a winter evening. Clubs have an important role to play in the future control of these weeds and hopefully there will be good support for a seminar. Once I’ve worked out the time and details, I’ll contact clubs and place a post on the blog. Thanks for the support.
Stuart has contacted myself and others in South Ayrshire Council and I am hopeful that we shall run a similar event and emulate the attendance figures of our colleagues in East Ayrshire!
I would like to offer my thanks and appreciation to ART for the work that they have been doing in relation to invasive weeds – with their co-ordinatred approach it would be nice to think that we can control, if not eliminate, the top three weeds in some, if not all, Ayrshire water courses. To do this of course means that we in the LA’s play our role and as is mentioed above angling clubs and land owners – so it is great to see R Crothswaits blog above.