More than 400 trees have been planted across three sites in and around Watford as part of an environmental project to help fix the planet.

The trees were planted at The Grove, Woodoaks Farm and Collett School by a group of volunteers led by Hertfordshire’s Lord-Lieutenant Robert Voss, with a further 400 planned for February. In addition, ten Feeding our Future ‘Urban Orchards’ are due to be planted next spring.

Funded by Watford Community Housing, the orchards are designed to be living and tech-enabled billboards to inspire people to reconnect with food production and reduce their own food-waste.

Feeding our Future is a project designed to engage schools, business, charities and neighbourhoods in helping eliminate food-waste from the Watford food chain.

Watford Observer:

Sharon Gaffney sourced the trees and co-founded Feeding our Future

When Sharon Gaffney, who runs Verde Business Solutions and co-founded the project, started looking for a partner to source 200 fruit trees for the initiative, she came across the More Trees Campaign.

Sharon said the campaign was so impressed by the plan to plant the urban orchards, they offered more than 800 more trees to be planted as part of The Queen’s Green Canopy.

This initiative was created to mark Her Majesty’s Platinum Jubilee next year, inviting people across the UK to ‘plant a tree for the jubilee’

The task of identifying the three locations as planting sites and organising a team of volunteers for the ‘extra’ trees was taken up by Watford Chamber of Commerce Kickstarters Zander Barr and Ashley Lee-Trill.

Watford Observer:

Kickstarters Zander and Ashley

Both are recent graduates and working on the project meant they could put their knowledge to practical use, agreeing such hands-on experience will stand them in good stead for their future careers.

Chamber chief executive Chris Luff said: “I’ve been very impressed by Zander, Ashley and the Chamber team in the way they’ve grabbed the opportunity to lead on this important environmental project.

“After all, Feeding our Future is all about creating a sustainable future, because you can’t do great business without tackling climate change too”.