Holmhills Wood Community Park runs from Greenlees Road to Langlea Drive and is an important part of the greenspace for Cambuslang. It includes Holmhills Wood, wildflower meadows, a pond, sports pitches and is the site for Cathkin High School and Rutherglen High School.  Improving the state of the Park is an important project for Cambuslang Community Council and has led to the creation of Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park (see below).

LATEST NEWS 

For latest news, please go to Facebook page:  @holmhillspark

4 May 2017. To launch the new season, Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park are organising an open meeting to discuss priorities for this year. The meeting will be held on Thursday, 4th May, 7-8 pm, at the Cambuslang Institute on Greenlees Road. If you have an interest in the Park or would like to know more about the Friends group, please feel free to come along – you will be made very welcome!

13 August 2016. Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park have launched an anti dog fouling (and anti-litter) campaign. The Friends group said: “Holmhills Park like other parks suffers periodically from a dog poo problem. Mainly near the paths at entrances and exits to the park, sadly some dog owners don’t pick up after their dog poo. By spraying dog poo with (biodegradable) blue paint we hope to draw attention to it. Our hope is that those who don’t pick up their dog poo realise how disgusting and noticeable it is. If you see areas where there is a lot of dog poo please contact South Lanarkshire Council on 0303 123 1015 or through this link.”

 

 

 

 

 

9 August 2016. Chair of Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park, Michelle Farmer, has been awarded Rutherglen Rotary’s Community Award for her exceptional work in the Community. In particular, Michelle was recognised for her enthusiastic work in improving Holmhills Wood Community Park and on Cambuslang Community Council. Congratulations Michelle!

 

 

 

 

25 May 2016. Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park have been awarded funding to make new improvements to the park, with the planting and maintenance of wildflower meadows, as well as ornamenting the site with signage and sculptures. The improvements will be supported with an £872 grant from the Central Scotland Green Network Community Project Fund. Michelle Farmer of Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park and member of Cambuslang Community Council said: “we are absolutely delighted at the award. This will allow us to do new planting of Scottish wildflower seeds, initially around the Langlea Grove entrance,  which will attract birds, bees and butterflies”. The improvements are the latest stage in our plans to improve the park, making it more attractive and accessible to people in the area”.

 

 

 

 

 

21 March 2016. Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park have submitted a funding bid for almost £900 to Central Scotland Green Network. The project aims to enrich biodiversity by planting and maintaining wildflower meadow areas and ornamenting these sites with fun sculptures and signage to add further enjoyment and interest for visitors. Community engagement is already present with local donations of wildflower seed received and schools based on site to be invited to assist with planting. The project fits in with the sub-group’s aims of encouraging more local visitors to visit and enjoy their park and engage in its sustainable future.
12 March 2016. Frogs are spawning in the wetland area of Holmhills Wood Community Park! See the video taken by Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park here.

25 February 2016. Alison Park, a member of Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park has carried out an Ecological Survey of the Park. It reviews the state of the woodland, scrub, grassland, wetland, other habitats and hedgerows.  The Survey makes important recommendations for improving biodiversity among flora and fauna, as well as improvements to access, recreation and leisure opportunities. A copy of the Survey is available here together with a plan (based on a South Lanarkshire Council map) showing the locations for the recommendations here.

25 November 2015. Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park have been awarded almost £600 from Pride of Place to plant 1,000 bulbs – golden harvest daffodils, red and pink tulips – around the entrances to Holmhills Wood Community Park. The bulbs were recently planted by South Lanarkshire Council’s Land Services department on behalf of the Friends.   Michelle Farmer, chair of Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park said: “We are very grateful to Pride of Place for this award. When the flowers bloom in Spring, they will provide a fabulous Easter display to welcome people to the Park.  We have had a fantastic year with so many improvements to the Park – clearing vegetation, improving paths, removing litter and rubble, cutting back trees and bushes, providing new bins, building a bug hotel and much more. There has also been a big increase in people using the Park, partly through the events we have run. We have big plans for next year too, and having 1000 new plants coming into flower in spring will give us a blooming marvellous start!”

10 November 2015. Local school-pupils had the great experience of some outdoor learning, getting fit and having fun all at the same time on a new Health Walk initiative in Holmhills Wood Community Park. For four weeks from early October, seven pupils from Cathkin High School ASN Unit took part in a new health walking project set up by Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park (a sub-group of Cambuslang Community Council) and supported by Get Walking Lanarkshire and Paths for All.  The project had the aim of educating the pupils about the benefits of  walking, getting them fitter and healthier while learning what the park has to offer – the bug hotel, pond life, the Forest School woodland area and of course picking and enjoying apples, raspberries and blackberries!

 

 

 

 

 

13 October 2015. Michelle Farmer attended the opening of this grand Bug Hotel on behalf of Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park. Project 31 have been working hard in Holmhills Wood and they built the hotel during their recent forest school sessions, with funding from Action Earth. It is a fantastic hotel for bugs and the first of its kind in Holmhills Wood and was given some well-deserved coverage in the Rutherglen Reformer. Well done to the Forest School!

 

 

 

17 September 2015: The Rutherglen Reformer have given excellent coverage of the Bat Watch, commenting on the great turnout and the enjoyable time had by all.

 

 

 

 

11 September 2015:  Friends of Holmhills Wood Community Park organised a Bat Watch on Friday, 11th September, 7.45 pm. This was the third event since the Friends Group was formed this year. Cambuslang Community Council member and Chair of the Friends, Michelle Farmer, said: “We’ve had a community litter pick-up, a pond dipping and a mini-beastie event since June 2015. These events were run by South Lanarkshire Council’s Countryside Rangers and Project 31, and the Rangers have now hosted a Bat Watch.”

8 September 2015: Work has been done by FoHWCP and the SLC Community Payback Team over the weekend to crown-lift and trim trees. On the advice of the SLC arborist, branches were cut back to the trunk to prevent offshoots growing. More stones, concrete blocks and pieces of tar were removed from the grass-edge strip on Langlea Road; these were a hazard for grass-cutting machinery. Our plan is to rotovate the strip, remove weeds, apply weed-killer and sow wildflower seeds right along Langlea Road from the entrance at Langlea Grove to the entrance to Cathkin High School.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

27 August 2015. The Park entrances are being  prepared for a major bulb-planting programme due in late October 2015. Friends of Holmhills Park have submitted an application for Pride of Place funding for 1,000 daffodil and tulip bulbs that will create a beautiful, welcoming display at the entrances to the Park in Spring 2016. The photos show the entrance at Langlea Grove being cleared for planting.

 

 

 

 

14 August 2015. Improvements to the Park are happening almost daily as we use the long ‘summer’ days to get different parts of the Park into shape. The latest improvements are to the Langlea Drive entrance to Cathkin High School where the SLC Community Payback Team and Land Services have done a lot of work to clear vegetation and open up the bend, as the before-and-after photos below show. Our plan going through to the spring is to rotavate and smooth the ground and replant with fresh grass seed as well as creating a decorative wall and plate with the name of the Park.

 

 

 

 

12 August 2015. Following a survey by South Lanarkshire Council’s arborist, the trees along the path from Grenville Drive have been crown lifted and cut back to the bark by SLC Land Services. This has created a clearer and safer route into the park from the Drive. The path on Langlea Grove has also had the trees cut back. The photos below show the before and after state of the paths and the bark-cut trees.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

29 July 2015.  The summer continues to be busy with improvements to the Park.  Tar has been removed by the SLC Community Payback Team from the Langlea Road end of the Park which will allow the grass to be cut from one end of the park perimeter from Langlea Grove right round the bend to the High School entrance. We plan to plant wild flowers along this strip in Spring 2016. Also, several holes have been filled in at the grass area at the front entrance to Cathkin High School, and the area is being rotivated to remove all the weeds and then smoothed prior to re-seeding.

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This bin has been relocated to the pond area in the park hopefully to eradicate litter being thrown in the pond. This will help protect our ducks and ducklings amongst the many other pond life species in Holmhills Wood.

 

 

 

 

 

14 June 2015.  More litter removal from the Cathkin High School entrance area has been done this weekend as well as clearance of rubble, branches etc. This is in preparation for filling in three large holes with soil and levelling the ground. This will allow the whole grassed area to be cut regularly and improve the appearance of the Langlea Road entrance.

Our local wood artist, Allan, has made some inspiring signs to welcome people to the park and encourage them to enjoy and value the woods.

9 June 2015.  Work this week has seen the marker posts being repainted by South Lanarkshire Council Land Services, and debris being removed, tree stumps cut down and the hole being in-filled with soil to create a level surface by the Community Payback Team.

 

 

Future work will see management of Holmhills Wood to thin out some of the overgrown vegetation and improve the state of some of the paths such as this one:

 

 

 

 

7 June 2015. The Sunday Community Litter Pick-up  involved 25 local residents collecting over 50 bags of rubbish and litter and making major improvements to the Holmhills Wood part of the Park close to Langlea Drive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

April/May 2015. Following the launch of a campaign to improve the Park in Autumn 2014 by Cambuslang Community Council member, Michelle Farmer, the first improvements have already been made with the help of South Lanarkshire Council Land Services and the Community Payback Team. The path leading from the Langlea Road entrance has been cleared, with overgrown trees and shrubs cut back and new planting. A new manhole cover has been installed. For more details, see the report in the Rutherglen Reformer here.  Here are some picture of the work in progress in Spring 2014:

  

  

Friends of Holmhills Park

Friends of Holmhills Park is a new group which has been established  to improve to Holmhills Wood Community Park and is looking for members.

 Holmhills Community Park was originally opened in 2001 following work  undertaken through the Cambuslang / Rutherglen Derelict Land Greening Programme which resulted in the reclamation of 17ha of derelict land, planting of 2.7ha of woodland and installation of 3km of new lit paths, cycleways and green routes. Running from Langlea Drive to Greenlees Road, the Park won Scottish and UK recognition for its imaginative provision of new greenspace.

However, in recent years there has been increasing concern among local residents about the state of the park. Some parts have become overgrown and some paths are in poor condition. Parents of children walking to Cathkin High School through the park are particularly concerned at paths being waterlogged in wet weather. As a result, it was announced at the Cambuslang Community Council meeting on 17 March that a new ‘Friends of Holmhills Park’ is to be set up to plan improvements to the park and raise funding for projects.

If you are interested in becoming involved in the new Friends group, please contact Michelle Farmer at mishafarmer@live.com,