GREEN guardians of the environment at Groundwork East Lancashire are celebrating their first birthday.

It has been a whirlwind of a year for staff and volunteers at the green organisation who have been kept busy working on various green projects in Burnley, Pendle and Hyndburn.

Groundwork East Lancashire is also a powerful force in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph's Grimewatch partnership along with neighbouring Groundwork organisations in Blackburn and Rossendale and the Tidy Britain Group.

Much of their work has come as a result of what you said you wanted.

Groundwork's Bob Sutcliffe explained: "The first thing we did was take our roadshow out so that we could find out what people think about the environment.

"We asked them to tell us about the top spots and grot spots of East Lancashire and through that we found out which areas need protecting and which need improving.

"We got such a good response it gave us enough work to keep us going for the next 10 years."

Since then they have worked with various organisations including local councils, schools, businesses and community groups.

Bob said: "Groundwork never works alone - we always work with other groups because we believe we can achieve much more that way. "Because we cover a very diverse area from the rural areas of Pendle to urban Burnley we are involved in a lot of very varied projects.

"Very often a group comes to us and they don't really know what they want to do so we can offer our landscape design and countryside management service.

"And very importantly we can also attract funds for projects."

The Groundwork are involved in three major schemes.

The Hearts and Minds campaign is an awareness raising scheme targeting schools and community groups.

Previous successes include Todmorden Road primary school in Burnley where the dull tarmac playground has been transformed with bright and colourful wall murals and a sensory garden.

The Physical Improvements programme is for areas that require a lot of improvement.

St Mary's Burial Ground in Clayton-le-Moors and the Langroyd Estate in Colne are both benefiting from this scheme.

The Business Action scheme is aimed at businesses who want to conduct an environmental review of their working practices or carry out physical improvements on their site.

The Ouzledale Foundry in Barnoldswick, which has benefited from a tree planting and landscaping programme is just one of their success stories.

The Groundwork team are temporarily based on the Rossendale Road Industrial Estate in Burnley but are looking for a permanent base.

If you have got any ideas for an environmental project in the Burnley, Pendle and Hyndburn area, or want advice about anything green you can call Groundwork on 01282 832712.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.