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More on KentOnline
When retired head teacher Allan Cecil and his wife Molly were asked to help out with a new green space to mark the year 2000, they signed up for a four-year term.
But the couple never looked back, and have instead dedicated the last 21 years of their lives to making Collis Millennium Green, in Maidstone, the oasis it is today.
Previously, the two-and-a-half acre space, off St Philip’s Avenue was a dumping area where local kids used to burn tyre piles filled with rubbish on abandoned school tennis courts.
Grandfather-of-six Mr Cecil is now the chairman of the trustees. The 81-year-old said: “We were told it was a four-year term and now we are in 2021 still going strong.
“The park looks beautiful, we keep it in as good a condition as we possibly can. It’s hard work but it’s a joy and people do say to us how wonderful it looks. We enjoy seeing all the people using it.”
The Collis Millennium Green Trust was one of many groups given grants by the Countryside Agency to create green spaces to mark the millennium.
The group, then led by the late John Frisby, was required to make up half of the £78,000 needed for the green - £25,000 came from Maidstone council with the rest raised by the trust.
School children and sixth-formers were among those who helped to transform the space.
After the ground was levelled up, All Saints Primary School, which then didn’t have any playing fields, would hold their sports days on the green, Mr Cecil laying out the racing lines.
The retired Platts Heath Primary School head teacher and Molly, 80, also a former teacher, remember trustees and their families planting 800 plants over a weekend, thanks to a mix-up with a supplier, when eight trees were actually asked for.
Since its opening, a sculpture designed by a school pupil, a playground and basketball court have been added, paid for by additional grants.
For the past two decades, the Cecils have spent two or three hours a week maintaining the green. A group of five others helped with the planting, but they have become too old now. The trustees are currently looking for new volunteers.
Asked how long they see themselves continuing on the park, Mr Cecil said: “As long as we can, it’s part of our lives now.”
