Looe Shedders is delighted to announce that a project it’s been working on for several months, a playground tractor, was delivered to Trenode Primary School on Wednesday 5th March. It was brought to the school in parts and assembled in the playground before pupils rushed out to play on it.
“We’re just extremely grateful to Looe Shedders that they’ve been able to create such a wonderful piece of equipment for our school. We love the fact that you can’t buy this in a catalogue,” said Bethany Pike, the School’s Head. “The children know the community has contributed to it and I think that’s something really special. We’re just very fortunate with having the link to it being a tractor and being such a small rural school with farming families. That’s why our children are going to absolutely love it.”
Almost all of the tractor was made with recycled materials donated by local people. This includes composite decking and all of the wood. The large back wheels came from a cable drum from the Looe Harbour Commission and the steering wheels (two of them!) came from sit-on-mowers. Most of the paint was donated by Ronseal.
Looe Shedders have said: The tractor took so long to build because Looe Shedders doesn’t have its own shed. As a result it can only meet a couple of times a month in Looe’s St Martin’s Community Hall and any messy work has to be done outside, at the mercy of the weather. Work was also hampered by the theft of a large amount of tools in November 2024.
Looe Shedders has launched a “New Home” campaign to address this issue. It’s looking for land on which it could build a shed or an existing building that could be adapted for its use. “Having our own shed would be a game-changer,” said Chris Roy, Looe Shedders’ chairman. “It would mean we could meet more often and work on projects regardless of the weather. And that would encourage more people to join Looe Shedders.”
A new home would also mean Looe Shedders could address a backlog of requests for it to make more community projects such as the playground tractor – see https://www.looeshedders.co.uk/communityprojects1.html. “As things stand it could take us years to deal with our current waiting list and we’re having to turn down requests for some future projects,” said Chris Roy.
To learn more about Looe Shedders you can visit: https://www.looeshedders.co.uk/
TOMORROW 29th March, 2025
10am-2pm
Millpool Centre 
