Stephen Nottingham's Food Blog: Creative Rural Communities

Showing posts with label Creative Rural Communities. Show all posts

Sunday, 15 September 2013

Creating a Community Garden 10

In a series of posts I have outlined the process by which Nightingale Community Garden in Dinas Powys was created (links below). In June, I described how the garden was flourishing during its first summer. Among the verdant greenery, it was hard to believe that gardening had only started a couple of months previously. Some of the crops were entered in this year’s Dinas Powys Village Show (31 August); Giles Metcalf’s beetroot, for instance, won First Prize.

On Saturday 14 September, the official opening of the Nightingale Community Garden was held. Cllr. Keith Hatton and Elizabeth Millard, of the Dinas Powys Residents’ Group, welcomed everyone, outlined the history of the garden, introduced the special guests, and thanked those who had made important contributions along the way.

Keith had the original idea of doing something with the derelict piece of land, on the footpath that connects Sir Ivor Place and Nightingale Place, which was becoming a focus for anti-social behaviour in the area. With Elizabeth, they put together the first plan for turning it into a Community Garden. At an early stage they gained the support of Mike Ingram, one of the special guests at the event, who is the Operational Manager of Public Housing Services at the Vale of Glamorgan Council. Mike facilitated the smooth transition of the site, from unwanted public housing land to Community Garden.

The Finance Minister of the Welsh Assembly Government Jane Hutt AM placed the garden within the larger context of The Rural Development Plan, which is a joint Welsh Government and European Union strategy. In her short speech, she stressed the importance of finance from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development, which along with Welsh Government funding enables projects such as this to happen. Jane also stressed the importance of supporting community-led initiatives.

The Welsh Government funds community projects through Councils. Cllr. Liz Burnett, another of the special guests at the event, is Vale of Glamorgan Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Innovation, Planning and Transportation. The money that comes to the Council for rural regeneration is in her portfolio. The Vale of Glamorgan Council funds its own rural development initiative: Creative Rural Communities.

Rob McGhee of the Community Foodie section of Creative Rural Communities, established to help communities grow their own food, has been involved with the Nightingale Community Garden project from a very early stage. He has been key in obtaining funding and helping to manage the project, including overseeing the contractors who have worked to transform the site. He praised the enthusiasm of the local communities he works with, both in Dinas Powys and in other places were similar projects have been successful such as Treoes. Rob is the one talking in the picture above, with Mike Ingram next to him.

BBC Wales’ weatherman Derek Brockway (above, with Keith) certainly bought the sun with him, which shone throughout proceedings. With a cheery “hello and shw’mae” he gave us an up-to-date weather forecast. Unfortunately, this involved windy autumn weather just around the corner. He noted how the warmest and driest summer for seven years had helped the garden be so productive in its first year. Below is a picture of Derek cutting the ribbon, with Keith looking on. Derek took time out from filming his current series of 'Weatherman Walking' for BBC Wales to open the Community Garden. You can find details on the BBC website, where you can also print out Weatherman Walking maps that enable you to follow in Derek's footsteps. He was right about the weather today (Sunday); though I am in the warm writing this, and he is walking and filmed up in the bleak Brecon Beacons!

Here’s a photo of Cllr. Keith Hatton, Derek Brockway, Elizabeth Millard and Jane Hutt AM.

During the speeches Keith and Elizabeth thanked several people whose energy and enthusiasm have contributed enormously to the garden’s success. We owe a big debt of gratitude to Stuart Hockley for, among other things, orchestrating the laying out of the plots and for erecting two large greenhouses and a shed in the garden. Merry Metcalf was thanked for organizing all the paperwork during the crucial stage when the plots were being allocated, and Lynne Squires was thanking for carrying on in this role.

Angela Peterken is the lead gardener of a Family Growing Group within the garden. This arose from her work as a Learning Support Assistant at Dinas Powys Infants School, following enquiries by parents keen to start growing vegetables with their children. Five families have been working alongside each other on the largest plot in the garden, including families with no previous experience of growing their own food. 24 different types of vegetables have been grown on their plot, including these pumpkins (a credible Third Prize in the Village Show), which are being lined up for Halloween.

An impressive array of food was on offer, all contributed by plot-holders, including a cake made by Angela. David Southall, who was thanked by Keith during the speeches for donating the large greenhouse to the garden, is seen here cutting the cake, with Mike Ingram and Elizabeth Millard looking on.

Below is a picture of Robin Harrison at the plant stall, selling seeds and seedlings. Robin is a fount of gardening knowledge and he teaches an Organic Gardening course at Murchfield Community Centre on Wednesday mornings (10am-12 noon) during term-time; part of Penarth Community Learning Centre’s adult education programme.

Below are some photos taken during July and August, since my last dispatch on the Community Garden, including one of the small wooden seats Giles made from felled timber and one of my own plot. Like many plot-holders, I had good crops of runner beans, potatoes and courgettes; along with rhubarb, peas and chard. As Elizabeth said, at the conclusion of the speeches, this is the fulfilment of a dream to turn an ugly derelict area into an attractive productive garden, which has really bought together the community in this part of Dinas Powys.

Sunday, 21 October 2012

Creating a Community Garden 4

In a series of posts (links below) I am following the creation of a Community Growing Area in Dinas Powys, on an abandoned play area between Sir Ivor Place and Nightingale Place.

This project was initiated by Elizabeth Millard (Chairperson of the Dinas Powys Residents Group) and Councillor Keith Hatton. The project is supported by Creative Rural Communities (Vale of Glamorgan Council), with Rob McGhee being the Rural Regeneration Officer involved. More specifically, the Dinas Powys Community Growing Area falls within the Community Foodie initiative, which aims to identify, develop and support community food growing activities.

Rob (pictured) came to Dinas Powys on Saturday (20 Oct) to give an update on progress. The meeting, in Youldon House, was attended by over 30 people. Keith outlined the history of the project and introduced Rob, who summarized achievements to date (see previous posts) that include identification of the site, fund-raising, community engagement, and an initial plan for the site that takes into account all skill levels and includes raised beds for those with restricted mobility. He also talked about successful community growing projects in other parts of Wales.

Funding is in place and a contractor (Gerald Davies) is due to start clearing the site later this month. Security fencing will be erected, top-soil put down, and water pipes extended into the site. A communal shed will be erected near the electrical sub-station.

A tour of the site was followed by a discussion back at Youldon House, in which everyone stuck post-it notes with ideas on the proposed plan (pictured below). Suggestions included a brick BBQ, the use of wood from the felled trees to make benches, water butts, communal compost, solar lighting, increasing the proportion of raised beds, establishing links with schools and the recently-established Food Bank in Dinas Powys, a play area for young children, and a skills database.

The meeting was used to identify those who want to serve on a Growing Group, which will help to drive the project forward. Further meet-ups, including a clearance day, will be held on-site in the coming months. I’ll keep you posted.

This well-attended meeting was a significant step forward in raising awareness and channelling enthusiasm for the project. Elizabeth’s vision of turning this ugly derelict area into an attractive community gathering and food-growing area, where she can come to sit in the sun and read a book, became a step closer to reality.

As a footnote, an upcoming date for your diary: Paul Mobbs (author of ‘Energy Beyond Oil’) will be speaking in Lee Hall Dinas Powys on Thursday 22 Nov (7pm). There will be a small entrance fee to cover costs. Greater community self-reliance, in which growing areas play a significant part, is a key theme of the Transition Town Movement that is planning for the post-oil future. Linda Ware, the organizer of this talk, has initiated another community growing project in the village - the Dinas Powys Orchard Project.

Previous posts on Dinas Powys Community Garden:

Aug 2012

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/creating-community-garden-3.html

Feb 2012

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/creating-community-garden-2.html

Jan 2012

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.com/2012/01/creating-community-garden.html

Thursday, 23 August 2012

Creating a Community Garden 3

In a couple of previous posts (links below) I outlined how to go about turning an area of wasteland into a Community Garden. In particular, our project involves taking an abandoned play area in Dinas Powys (between Nightingale Place and Sir Ivor Place) and turning it into the Dinas Powys Community Growing Area.

The project was initiated and is being steered by Elizabeth Millard, Chair of the Dinas Powys Residents’ Group, and Councillor Keith Hatton (Plaid Cymru). Rob McGhee of Creative Rural Communities (Vale of Glamorgan Council) is project-managing: that’s him on the left in this picture of the trio photographed on the site this week.

I previously reviewed the type of grants available in the Vale of Glamorgan for this type of project (they may be similar in other parts of the UK). A couple of weeks ago the project was awarded £28,000 by Tidy Towns Wales, a Welsh Assembly government initiative that funds community projects aiming to improve the quality of the environment.

Earlier this week, Emma Hancock met Rob, Elizabeth, Keith and I on the site. Emma is a Landscape Architect working within the Planning and Transportation Department of the Vale of Glamorgan Council. Among her tasks will be to look at Utility Plans (e.g., to decide on the best route to bring water pipes to the site) and to oversee the work of contractors.

A contractor - Gerald Davies - has been chosen from among those who put in estimates/bids for the work. The company has experience of similar work around the Vale. Work can start after the bird nesting season, and the contractors are expected to be on the site by the end of October. Firstly, part of a wall will be taken down to allow vehicle access from Sir Ivor Place (the wall will be rebuilt afterwards). The rubber and concrete surfaces will then be broken up and removed, topsoil will be put down, and a security fence erected around the site.

Before the contractors start work, however, there will be an initial clearance day to cut back overgrown hedges etc. This will be held on Saturday 20 October, starting at nearby Youldon House around 10.30 am. Everyone is welcome (bring tools!); it will be an opportunity for those interesting in having a plot on the community garden to meet and find out more. Creative Rural Communities will be there with plans of the garden, which will include communal areas and individual plots. It will also be the first step in forming a Management Committee for the long-term maintenance of the community garden.

The Dinas Powys Community Garden has the backing of Community Foodie, a project under the umbrella of Creative Rural Communities and the Vale of Glamorgan Council, to identify, develop and support community food growing. Their aim is to strengthen communities by increasing the amount of food produce grown and consumed locally, to develop skills (e.g., local schools will be invited to participate in the project), to promote healthy lifestyles, and to bring people together. With a bit of luck, the Dinas Powys Community Growing Area will achieve all these things.

I will post again shortly, with a more detailed look at the plans for the site.

Previous Dinas Powys Community Garden posts:

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/creating-community-garden-2.html

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/creating-community-garden.html

Sunday, 19 February 2012

Creating a Community Garden 2

In a previous post (14 Jan 2012), I reported on the first stages of a project to convert an abandoned children’s play area into a community garden:

http://sfnottingham.blogspot.com/2012/01/creating-community-garden.html

I will be posting regular updates on the Dinas Powys Community Growing Area, to keep residents of Dinas Powys informed and to help others seeking to transform wasteland into places where communities can grow their own food.

This project was initiated by Elizabeth Millard (Chairperson of the Dinas Powys Residents Group) and Councillor Keith Hatton (Plaid Cymru). They organized a second meeting on Saturday18 Feb at Murchfield Community Hall in Dinas Powys to discuss progress.

Rob McGhee is one of twelve Rural Regeneration Officers working for Creative Rural Communities (an initiative led by the Vale of Glamorgan council). He is in charge of Community Grown Food Projects (areas covered by other Officers include tourism, farm diversification, cycleways and footpaths). Rob was approached by Elizabeth and Keith a few months ago, and agreed that the Dinas Powys project would be ideal for Creative Rural Communities involvement. If you live outside the Vale, check to see if your local Council has an equivalent initiative.

Rob arrived at the meeting with plans he had drawn up for the site. The 940 square metres has been officially designated a ‘Community Growing Area’ on the plans and will have communal spaces and also individual plots. The larger plots will be a substantial 12 by 5 metres, while there will be a range of smaller ‘starter’ plots (with flexibility built in as larger plots can be subdivided). There will be some deep beds, which are easier for the elderly and infirm to cultivate. Wheelchair access will be provided, so slab paths will be laid at the entrance and around the site. The council agreed that an adjacent overgrown and abandoned council house garden could be incorporated, with the removal of a bramble-covered fence.

There will be one large communal storage shed for equipment (although individual lockers could be located within this shed). Keys to the double gate in the security fence will be supplied to local residents who garden plots, while a rota system will be established for caretaker keyholders to open the garden during certain hours of the day to allow access to everyone in the community.

Creative Rural Communities will supply funding to get the project started, although grants from other sources will be applied for to meet the full costs. The main source of additional funding is likely to be Tidy Towns (a Welsh Government initiative, described in the previous post). Rob will also help organize a community clean-up work party, to work alongside members of the local community in getting the site prepared.

Publicity is another area where Creative Rural Communities can provide assistance. More publicity is required in Dinas Powys, on the aims and timetable of the project, and on the specific inconvenience it may cause during the establishment phase. Due to the presence of contractor’s vehicles, for instance, the footpath between Nightingale Place and Sir Ivor Place will need to be closed for at least a month.

On the ground, three different contractors have already visited the site and given estimates for the costs of land clearance, removing the old wire fence, putting up security fencing, and supplying topsoil. Estimates of costs have been in the same ballpark, with one of the contractors having recently done a similar job in nearby St Andrews Major.

The meeting discussed a range of other issues, which may be relevant to similar projects. These including the need to cut hedges before birds start nesting, the determination of where cables lie under the soil (there is an adjacent electrical substation in this case), getting local schools involved, bringing water and electricity onto the site, and establishing a communal compost area. In the Vale of Glamorgan, compost is made from the Council’s kitchen waste roadside collection and is available for free if collected from the Cowbridge recycling plant (see link to previous post on recycling below).

Because this is a community garden and not a statutory allotment, there will be fewer restrictions on what can be done with the food (e.g., only a small proportion of food grown on an allotment can be sold). This makes for more flexibility and opens the possibility of regular produce sales, either on-site, at the Village Show, or via local shops and farmers markets, with some of the money feeding back into this project and other community activities.

At the meeting, Rob also handed out leaflets “fresh off the press” for Community Foodie: a new project (within the Creative Rural Communities sphere), that will be officially launched in March 2012, to identify, develop and support community food growing in the rural areas of Bridgend, Torfaen and the Vale of Glamorgan. I will post on that, along with further developments in the Dinas Powys Community Growing Project, at a later date.

As these photos (which I took this morning) illustrate, a community garden should greatly improve the environment in this area; turning it from an ugly space where underage drinkers and drug users hang out, into a place that brings the community together by providing a recreational meeting place and a source of locally-produced food.

The next project meeting at Murchfield Hall will be in late April or early May.

On the current schedule, Elizabeth, Keith and Rob are hopeful that the contractors can start work on the site sometime later in May.

Further information:

Creative Rural Communities is a regeneration and economic development initiative, led by the Vale of Glamorgan Council in partnership with various public, private and voluntary sector organisations.

Creative Rural Communities
The Old Hall, High Street, Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan CF71 7AH
http://www.creativeruralcommunities.co.uk/
http://www.valeofglamorgan.gov.uk/working/regeneration/rural_regeneration.aspx

Tidy Towns:
http://wales.gov.uk/topics/environmentcountryside/epq/cleanneighbour/tidytowns/?lang=en

Free compost from kitchen waste (and how to obtain it in the Vale of Glamorgan):
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.com/2012/01/co-mingling-in-vale-of-glamorgan.html