Download - Community green spaces
….. discover what communities have achieved in their outdoor spaces and get some ideas on what you could do with your own
Community green space
Community green spaces – where are they? • Streetscape improvements …. ‘in bloom’ • Parks & public open spaces • Verges & roundabouts • Allotments • School grounds • Health centre & hospital grounds • Church grounds & graveyards • Land owned by utility or rail companies • Woodlands & biodiversity areas • Community orchards • Roofs of buildings • Green spaces within housing developments • Shared gardens • We don’t know yet! Community Land Advisory Service (CLAS) www.communitylandadvice.org.uk Service developed to combat the lack of available land for community gardening and green space activities.
Why get involved? • Caring for the local environment
• Enhancing community cohesion
• Improving facilities and opportunities
• An opportunity to learn new skills
• Promoting healthy living and improved wellbeing
Well managed and maintained green space is an asset to the whole community. Makes the community a more desirable place to live.
Getting involved with community green space? • Set up an ‘in bloom’ project
https://www.rhs.org.uk/communities/campaigns/britain-in-bloom
• Become a master gardener www.mastergardeners.org.uk
• Engage with your local Council on existing parks & open spaces
• Take control of an existing park or open space
• Take control of a space for the benefit of you community
• Temporary use of an open space, ‘meanwhile use’
• Guerilla gardening ….
• 160 year old quarry nearing its end of life • Irregular 16 ha crater, 30 – 70 m deep • No flat ground and unstable slopes • Very wet with poor drainage • No soil
Bodelva China clay pit : Eden Project site, 1998
be ambitious
Eden Project : A global garden where people can learn about the natural world and our role in caring for it….
importance of a champion
“To be able to help to design, build and nurture
the garden on the Thames at Southbank
Centre with our team is, to this date, one of
the biggest challenges of my life.
Seven years ago, I was a broken man both
physically and mentally, living on the streets
with methadone, heroin and alcohol
addictions numbing the misery of my life.
How I got there is a long story. Today I am
clean, employed as a Horticulture Teacher in
our group, Grounded Ecotherapy, paying my
own rent for the first time in 30 years.
Horticulture has changed my life.”
Paul Pulford, 2011
therapeutic value
Growing for Life(rs) HMP Dartmoor
Old, walled exercise yards in former punishment wing walled yards, before the growing project started
Since August 2007, produce goes into free veg boxes delivered to elderly members of the local community. Veg boxes are sent out with labels designed by the RSU inmates: “peas release me.” Our growers inside have received many letters of thanks and have appreciated being able to “give something back”.
“PPeeaass RReelleeaassee MMee””
GGrroowwnn wwiitthh CCoonnvviicctt--iioonn!!
“PPeeaass RReelleeaassee MMee””
GGrroowwnn wwiitthh CCoonnvviicctt--iioonn!!
“PPeeaass RReelleeaassee MMee””
GGrroowwnn wwiitthh CCoonnvviicctt--iioonn!!
“PPeeaass RReelleeaassee MMee””
GGrroowwnn wwiitthh CCoonnvviicctt--iioonn!!
“PPeeaass RReelleeaassee MMee””
GGrroowwnn wwiitthh CCoonnvviicctt--iioonn!!
“PPeeaass RReelleeaassee MMee””
GGrroowwnn wwiitthh CCoonnvviicctt--iioonn!!
“PPeeaass RReelleeaassee MMee””
GGrroowwnn wwiitthh CCoonnvviicctt--iioonn!!
“PPeeaass RReelleeaassee MMee””
GGrroowwnn wwiitthh CCoonnvviicctt--iioonn!!
community benefits (giving, sharing)
“a new community garden that was created, with the help of Keep Wales Tidy, out of what was a grubby, brambly alleyway haunted by drug addicts and thieves who used it as an access routes into gardens, houses and the grounds of the neighbouring cardboard factory”
Ethel Street, Neath Port Talbot, Wales
repurposing waste
Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm (CSA), Ipswich • 12 acre former intensively farmed field.
• Two full-time professional farmers (paying themselves £850 a month, less than the minimum wage)
• 55 local households pay £8 a week for a “share” i.e. veg box (flowers, eggs and pork are optional extras)
• Members must undertake two hours a week voluntary work on the farm during summer – sowing, weeding, mulching, harvesting or feeding the two beef cattle, pigs, geese and chickens.
“As soon as you teach children which berries are edible and delicious,” says Helene Rudlin, the horticultural therapist at Hulme Community Garden Centre: “They get stuck in: they engage with nature and connect with others.”
Hulme Community Garden Centre, Manchester
Engaging children & young people Income generation
Outdoor space : development process Peace Park, Podujeve, Kosovo An outdoor space to heal a community
understanding the site
What’s there, how valuable is it?
• Slope
• Microclimate – wind, aspect, light/shade
• Features - retain?
• Soil – quality and depth
• Drainage
• Trees – condition and spread
• Views
• How is it used now?
Different approaches for different groups
Make it fun
Feedback what people have said
Keep community updated on what’s happening
Involve at all stages in the process
creative community engagement
What would you like to get rid of?
What do you like about the place?
Things that are important to keep?
What do you do here?
What would you like to do?
What kind of space would you like to have?
open questions …..
Existing plans from building or other reason?
Land survey – if complex levels or large area.
If small, flat and straightforward – have a go!
land survey
Working with designers vs. doing a plan yourself
Depends on scale and complexity
Big idea needs a master plan but don’t have to do it all at once. Advice on phasing & implementation
Some designers don’t build but can advise or project manage. Some offer a ‘design & build’ service
use a designer?
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Margaret Mead