Watten Helps Out – community clean-up of the village makes huge difference
Jobs that Highland Council fail to do are being undertaken by community groups throughout Caithness with the latest being Watten Helps Out (WHO) which got active on Sunday to spruce up the village.
The WHO Facebook group was set up by locals Aileen Henderson and Kirsty Omand to organise events, projects and other improvements to the village and surrounding areas. The group sent a call-out for volunteers and over 60 people, with ages ranging from toddlers to folk in their 80s, grabbed tools and got to work along the streets to make a massive difference.
Donald Harper was Watten's village officer until last year when the community council was no longer able to fund his position. He was still able to help out with tools from his gardening service, however. "I came out to lend a hand and provided sit-on lawnmowers, tools and strimmers," he said. "The turnout was fantastic and if you look around the village there's an amazing difference. The council don't have the money so somebody's got to do it."
Donald helps out with Wick Flower Baskets and paid tribute to Wick Paths Group which helped with most of the equipment provided on the day. The council gave out litter-pickers, gloves, hi-vis vests and bags. Dozens of bags were eventually removed and taken to the Seater dump later on along with unbagged items such as tree branches and shrubs. A large amount of branches were removed from a path that had become overwhelmed by trees alongside the Toll House on Station Road – a path that Cllr Jan McEwan highlighted last year in a walkabout tour of the village with various issues reported to Highland Council.
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9 / 9The group also cleared broken glass around the village bottle banks which were overflowing due to the council's failure to empty the bins. Vehicular problems were blamed for the issue and the bottles now appear to have been removed.
After the event local man Alan Gibson said: "I came along with my wife Audrey at the start. I strimmed along the road coming into Watten and walked about with the blower clearing things up. It was a really good day and it was a good community event as well as a way of getting to meet people."
Willie and Jane Coghill, well-known community stalwarts, were out at the event as well. "If you've got to thank one person you've got to thank them all," said Willie who is chair of the WHO group. "The day was absolutely brilliant. There were people there from one-year-old to over 80 working. They made a tremendous difference. They collected grass from the football pitch as the council don't pick it up.
"The school entrance was cleaned up. There was weeding and hedging done. Strimming around the bridge as well. Drains were cleared out. A lot of the stuff was taken to Seater [rubbish dump] afterwards and Donald [Harper] picked it up free of charge."
Maria Paterson, group joint chair, shared a post on the WHO Facebook page saying: "What an amazing turnout for our village clean up. We were overwhelmed by the amount of support, with over 60 people helping make such a difference in our community.
"We would like to thank Wick Paths Group, the Highland Council, Harper Services (Donald Harper), Anderson Groundcare and Contracting, R Henderson Mechanical and Welding Services, Bill Thompson and Gow Agricultural Ltd for their generosity by allowing us to use their equipment and giving up their time. Without the equipment we wouldn’t have been able to have such a successful day.
"We would also like to thank Donna and Colin from The Brown Trout for their hospitality and delicious breakfast to start the day, and for providing a base for us to work from – also Kat's Kups 'N' Kakes/Kat’s Kaithness Tipple for our excellent buffet, which was purchased through a microgrant from RWE Camster Wind Farm Community Fund. Lastly, our biggest thankyou goes to each and every one of you that helped make the day so successful and bringing community spirit to Watten."
