National Tree Week was celebrated in Victoria Park on Saturday (30th November) by the planting of two lime trees by the Mayor of Ashford, Cllr Jenny Webb assisted by the Portfolio Holder for Environment and Land Management, Cllr Andrew Buchanan, and the Portfolio Holder for Culture, Tourism & Leisure, Cllr Peter Feacey.

The tree planting was followed by the planting of hundreds of spring bulbs by the Friends of Victoria Park and other volunteers.

Following the walk round led by Ashford Borough Council and Allen Scott on 12th October, we have added information on the Tree Planting and Victoria Park Tree Work under The Plans on the menu.

Whilst it will be some time before most of the tree work is undertaken, the coppicing of trees and removal of invasive shrubs and poor quality trees will be started during the coming winter.

This summer saw the biggest Big Butterfly Count to date, with more butterflies counted by more people than ever before. Thank you to everyone who took part - we couldn't have done it without you. Every single one of the 116,009 counts submitted will inform our work to save struggling species. As we suspected, Painted Ladies were the star of the season. Read the full results to see how other butterflies fared.

More than a million butterflies were counted and logged by Big Butterfly Count participants this summer. The full results have been published this week, revealing which species were seen.

The mass migration of Painted Ladies saw this butterfly rise up the ranks to become the most seen species of 2019's count. The iconic Peacock butterfly also had a good year, securing a solid second place.

It wasn't such good news for our blue butterflies, with sightings of the Common and Holly Blue both down on last year.

Discover how what you saw compares with the butterflies spotted by others across the UK.

Read the full results...