This autumn, Warwickshire Wildlife Trust's Community Project is actively supporting the Wildlife Trusts' UK-wide Constituency Oaks initiative, which encourages all MPs to collect an acorn and grow a tree for the Millennium. MPs were alerted to this at a launch in Westminster in December last year and, so far, the response has been very encouraging.

Adding his support to this is the MP for Solihull, John Taylor. In his quest for acorns he returned to his roots in Hampton in Arden where he was born and grew up. The growing acorns will be nurtured by Warwickshire Wildlife Trust until the year 2000 when the young trees will be planted out in the Solihull constituency.

Pledging his support for the initiative, John Taylor said,

"This inspirational project has MPs all over the UK actively involved in protecting nature for many future generations. I am particularly pleased to be involved as it gives me a chance to visit the area where I grew up, to collect acorns for my constituency. The Solihull constituency is quite extensively developed these days but we still have some wonderful open spaces and woodland too, so I hope the trees that I will be helping to grow will make a significant contribution to the landscapes of the future".

Chris Thomas, Community & Education Manager for Warwickshire Wildlife Trust said

"We're delighted that John and many other MPs are taking part in Constituency Oaks. The acorns will be gathered from Hampton in Arden Spinney where the Trust is proud to be involved in a local project which looks after its wildlife. Hampton Society manage the spinney on behalf of the Parish Council and they have worked very hard over the past few years to make the spinney a valuable gift for future generations."

Over 250 MPs are taking part in Constituency Oaks this autumn and every constituency included will appear on a special Geographic Information Systems map in the House of Commons, supplied by the Ordnance Survey as their contribution to Trees of Time and Place. The Warwickshire Wildlife Trust area will be well represented with the majority of local MPs taking part this year.