Community Group Registration Number: 16133171
Balsam Bashing Season!!
What is Balsam Bashing?
Balsam Bashing is the removal of Himalayan Balsam, an invasive plant species that threatens native biodiversity along riverbanks and wetlands, including the beautiful River Calder. It spreads rapidly, outcompeting local plants and leaving our riverbanks vulnerable to erosion.
Our Balsam Bashing season has come to an end as the plants are now ready to seed. Seeds can travel many miles and with each plant able to produce upto 2400 new plants we stop bashing to contain existing colonies of Balsam as much as possible.
The 2025 Himalayan Balsam Bashing season has seen our volunteers pull and destroy
approximately 250sqM of this aggressive non native species which is such a massive achievement. Removal of such a large area will give our native flora a chance of surviving in these areas.
25 bags of waste
11 car tyres
2 shopping trolleys:
1 road barrier
2 desk chair
1 car seat
1 road cone
2 pushbikes
1 ironing board
1 shopping trolley
1 food mixer
…and plenty of other rubbish pulled from the river!
A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has helped us reach this point—you’re making a real difference!
Elland, Nr Lowfields Business Park
113 bags of litter
7 tyres
2 shopping trolley
3 traffic cone
5 road signs
1 chair
1 ironing board
…and loads of miscellaneous rubbish cleared from the Calder and surrounding areas!
Sands Lane, Dewsbury
The original plan was for a clean-up on Priory Road, followed by the river bank and nearby roads.
The littering on Priory Road exceeded what was expected, and not in a good way. Not only that, alot of the litter was within brambles and bushes making it more difficult to reach.
The wonderful volunteers raised to the challange...
88 bags of mixed litter removed from Priory Road
️
13 bags of cans retained for recycling
3 tyres
2 heras fence feet and a traffic cone removed
1 empty tonne bag
2 traffic cones
A fantastic morning with amazing volunteers that have made a massive difference to this area in Brighouse
Nr Priory Road, Brighouse
Hebble Trail, Siddal
Together, we've removed:
75 bags of waste
11 traffic cones
8 chapter 8 barriers & 5 road signs
22 tyres
Mixed scrap metal
Remains from a cannabis grow
Leather car seat & 4 baby car seats
A bath
A tent
A massive thank you to Paul and his team at The Shears Inn, Paris Gate, Halifax for providing much-needed sandwiches, chips, and hot drinks for our volunteers, and a huge shoutout to Jonny from Ava Waste Management Group for agreeing to dispose of all the waste collected today.
Also a massive shout to Damian from Atlas distribution for supplying us with a van again for the day.
This is the power of community - when like-minded people and groups come together, we can achieve amazing things!
