Tree guards and canes scatter the site after the saplings were uprooted

CHILDREN will be out planting saplings on Saturday, after more than 30 were uprooted by vandals.

The Comet reported at the beginning of March how vandals had pulled up saplings planted a day earlier by children and their parents on allotment land next to Ivel Springs Local Nature Reserve in Baldock to commemorate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Helping Baldock Allotment and Leisure Gardeners’ Association, 15 adults and 15 children had volunteered their time, but the following day tree guards, canes and saplings had been pulled out of the ground and only three of more than 30 saplings were found.

Insurance company LV= on Tilehouse Street in Hitchin has donated replacement saplings after reading about the vandalism in the Comet.

The allotment association’s chairman, Mick Camp, said: “One of its workers has an allotment on the Clothall Road site, so they have given us 30 more trees.

“We will be planting the trees on Saturday morning.”

Mr Camp would personally like to invite a 10-year-old boy called Adam, from Letchworth GC, back to the planting after he wrote a letter to the Comet explaining how disappointed he was that the hard work by himself and others had been undone by vandals.

The team will be meeting in the North Road allotment car park at 9.30am.

The allotment association plans to manage the trees by coppicing, using the resulting prunings for pea sticks and bean poles.