February 5th, 2020.


Young environmentalists at a Seaford school were presented with £500 towards sustainability improvements after they won a Lewes District Council competition.

Students at Cradle Hill Community Primary School’s Garden Club researched, designed and built ‘bug hotels’ to provide homes for a variety of bugs and insects. The children upcycled materials such as old pallets, tin cans from the school kitchen, old classroom stationery, twigs and straw for the project.

Their entry scooped first place in the council’s district-wide school recycling and sustainability competition.

Councillor Julie Carr, the Co-operative Alliance’s Cabinet Member for Recycling, Waste and Open Spaces, said: “We were really impressed by this project.

“Modern gardens and heavily landscaped areas often don’t contain the right kind of habitats for insects and other beneficial pollinators, but these bug hotels help support biodiversity and ecological balance. They attract bugs like bees, ladybirds and even dragonflies.

“Thanks to the students’ efforts, these important insects now have a safe shelter in which to live, hibernate and breed, and will also provide a natural food supply to encourage insectivores like bats and hedgehogs.”

Councillors Julie Carr and Isabelle Linington visited Cradle Hill School to award the prize.

The Garden Club plan to use the cash prize to create a remembrance garden at the school in Lexden Road. It is envisaged the garden will offer students a place for quiet reflection and remembrance, as well as further encouraging the insects which are so crucial to our ecosystem.


Pictured above: Councillors Carr (far right) and Linington (third from left) with Tom Broad, LDC Waste and Recycling Engagement Coordinator (second from left), with pupils and staff at Cradle Hill Community Primary School