Green & Pleasant Community Space Mollie Lewis Poole
When listening in a local cafĂŠ one day, I met a group of ladies
This now formed community group have conducted regular
who were unhappy with the state of the local council-owned
litter-picks and gardening dates for the whole community to
square and gardens. Full of litter, uncared for and generally
get involved in. They have also taken over responsibility for the
rundown, they felt it was a poor reflection of the community
local community board which had been unused for years; by
and thought how nice it would be if the area looked better.
renovating the board it is now a port of call for the community and a way to communicate with residents. The community group
I encouraged them to bring their family and friends along to
have done various fundraising events in order to keep their group
another meeting the following week, where we could discuss
going and improve the local space.
what actions they could take to improve the local area and do a group listening. The meeting was a success and we came up
This space is now something for the residents to be proud
with their new vision of a space that residents could be proud
of and littering has reduced dramatically, demonstrating the
of. With a dedicated group of volunteers, we enquired with the
positive effect looking after your community can have.
council for permission to do gardening on their then rundown
This group of volunteers are truly inspiring with their hard work
and unused land.
and determination!
The volunteers meet with the council and after some deliberation they took over the responsibility for the land. They quickly got on with the general tidy-up, gardening and planning of how they wanted the new space to look. Often attracting attention from local residents with their hard work and dedication, they were being given money from the community and so decided to form a community group, calling themselves ‘Asgard’ after the name of the local square.
Inspirational Community Gardeners