A greener set of four wheels has rolled into the Council’s Tree Nursery to help improve plant and tree production.

The Council’s local provenance tree nursery at Green Gates Farm, St Asaph, funded by Welsh Government, through the Local Nature Partnerships Cymru ENRaW project and Local Places for Nature grant, has produced 13,000 wildflower plants and 11,500 trees this season.

Plants produced at the nursery will be taken to existing county wildflower meadows to help boost the range of species on the sites, add variety and colour to improve the look of each site for the local communities to enjoy and maintain and improve biodiversity.

The wildflower meadow areas and woodland creation sites where some of the trees grown will go, provide benefits for everybody, not just nature, with other community benefits including improved air quality, urban heat cooling, physical and mental wellbeing and areas of mixed interest for education and play.

To help improve production for next season around the tree nursery and maintain surrounding wildflower meadows, the Council’s Biodiversity Team has welcomed a greener piece of kit to reduce carbon emissions impact on the site.

An electric Avant loader will be used to help out with manual work at the nursery, including moving stock around on the site, maintaining the sustainable creation of compost for the nursery and maintaining nearby wildflower areas and meadow.

The electric machine, which has no carbon tailpipe emissions, is able to lift up to 900kg and is equipped with loading forks and loading bucket to help with moving items around the site and a grass mower for maintenance.

In addition, an electric Fiat e-Doblo van with a range of 175 miles will support the low emissions delivery of trees and plants from the nursery to other sites.

Councillor Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “The team at the nursery and the volunteers who come in to help out do a fantastic job in growing the plants and trees that will go out to sites to improve their look and feel for local communities and nature.

“These new no exhaust emissions additions will help move production along at the site and keep in with our efforts to keep carbon emissions low across the Council.”