Wokingham

Wokingham District Council’s Community wardens joined forces with a team of caring community-minded people this week for a fence fixing mission.

The fence, belonging to an elderly couple in Winnersh, had been repeatedly damaged by vandals and the owners called the community wardens to the rescue. Tuesday February 7 saw the fence fixers – including young people and local traders - donning their toolbelts and honing their woodwork skills.

“The police were called to investigate who had caused the damage,” said community warden Lesley McCambridge. “But in the meantime, the fence needed to be fixed very quickly. When something has a hole in it, vandals seem to feel encouraged to make it worse. The owners of the fence are quite elderly and we were anxious to help protect their property from further damage.”

Lesley and her fellow warden, Emma Leroy, decided this was an opportunity to bring the community together for positive action. Last week they contacted The Forest, the nearest school, and local tradesmen CTS Contract Trading Service, of Toutley Road Wokingham, for help.

CTS Contract Trading Services kindly donated two skilled tradesmen for the afternoon, and all the wood needed for the repairs. Mr Quine, headmaster at The Forest, asked all his students last week whether any of them would be willing to help, and four sixth-form pupils stepped forward straight away - Max Lockwood from Wokingham, Julian Harley from Wokingham, Alex Pittaway from Winnersh and Matt Jones from Finchampstead. Julian Harley said: “Who would do this to someone’s property? It gives young people a bad name… but we’re not all the same.”

Lesley said: “Len Scruby and Mark Savage, the men from CTS Contract Trading Services, were invaluable. They showed the boys what to do and helped them to rebuild the fence properly. Without their help and the donation of wood, we could not have made this happen. This has shown how young people and local businesses can work together on community issues. The couple who own the fence are so pleased. This kind of team work is something we would like to encourage in Winnersh, and hopefully in other areas of the district too.”

Wokingham District Council