Transition Woodbridge at Car Free Saturday, 21st September

Transition Woodbridge at Car Free Saturday, 21st September

The sun shone brightly on Woodbridge’s first car-free day when the Thoroughfare, Quay Street, Church Street and part of Cumberland Street were closed to traffic. Volunteers from Transition Woodbridge and members of Woodbridge Town Council were there early to bedeck the area around The Cross with Sara (whose idea the day was) and Tony’s genuine Tibetan prayer flags and set up displays. Deb and Jane arrived, first with a trailer load of straw bales and then with a load of 33 plants generously loaned for the day by Dobbies Garden Centre. There was a good selection of top quality plants ranging from small shrubs to 2 to 3m tall trees and we arranged them to create an attractive garden right in the middle of The Cross surrounded by straw bales covered with hessian sacking to make a seating area for when the roads were closed at 10 am. Martin and his Fete Accomplis friends set up a busking and open mic space at the end of Cumberland Street, the East Coast Diner created an open air café at the bottom of Church Street and Pauline and Carol put up our Transition Woodbridge stand with our flag, the brilliant new bunting made by Jackie, some more plants and a barrow full of little trees.

The 40 or so small trees had been given by Suffolk Coastal Norse to Woodbridge Town Council who passed them on to us. During the day we gave most of these away to people who love trees and have space for them. We also found a good number of people interested in our projects and signed up 14 new contacts. Many of these were enthusiastic about trees and we hope will help with our fruit tree planting in the coming months. We also promoted our evening at the Long Shed with Sarah’s talk on reducing food waste and composting and the film Just Eat it. We also reminded passers-by about the Film Feast festival and its FREE showing of the Drowning in Plastic film on Saturday 5^th October at the Riverside theatre. We were proud to show the great article written by Charlie about our group, our achievements and projects which was recently published in the Woodbridge Society newsletter. People also contributed a few more ideas to add to our Ten Easy Ways to help Planet Earth. Even more ideas are welcome, we’re all in this together!

The warm and sunny afternoon wore on. At 4pm the road was opening again. So we tidied away – plants were returned to Dobbies, straw bales loaded up, bunting was untied, the flag dismantled, the road swept and the traffic flowed once more. But everyone agreed that it had been a Good Day. We look forward to the next car-free day for the Christmas Fair and hopefully more days next year. We hope that sometime soon our Thoroughfare will be car-free every day!