25 officers and tenants from eight housing associations across Greater Manchester came together last week for a seminar on setting up community gardens on housing association land.
The event was part of Kindling’s Big Dig project, and brought together Jade Bashford from the Community Land Advisory Service and Raichael Lock from the Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens.
Jade covered the legal issues involved, including leases and licenses, liability and insurance and how to co-operate with community groups, as well as a number of other issues which housing association officers flagged up as issues getting in the way of setting up community gardens.
Raichael worked with a group of tenants, mainly from Rochdale Boroughwide Housing, to look at issues facing new community gardens, such as how to run a community consultation, attracting participants and whether to build a group first, or a garden first, to then pull a group of interested people together. The group put together ideas on how to make the next step, despite the difficulties they are facing in identifying the landowner of the suitable plots they have identified.
Housing Associations from throughout Greater Manchester, including Rochdale, Bolton, Stockport and Manchester city. All described exciting plans to make food growing possible for all their tenants. Eastlands Homes, for example, outlined their project to remove the steel structure from the top of one of their blocks of flats, transforming the metal into raised beds of different heights to ensure accessibility for all on their community garden.
Feedback from the attendees was good, and important contacts were made to help everyone move things on. Kindling looks forward to working with Greater Manchester’s housing associations on developing a more food secure future for all.