Riverside - School kids get involved in planting day

26 February 2010

School children from a Leicester primary schools have been helping plant shrubs, vegetables and flowers at a new community garden on Drummond Road, Leicester. As part of the Green Spaces for People programme funded by the Big Lottery Fund, local social landlord, Riverside Midlands has been working with Belgrave St Peter’s Church of England Primary School to get the children involved in transforming a derelict garage space into a community garden for local people. Riverside Midlands and architect Barry Nicholls of Architectural & Surveying Services Ltd held a competition last summer with St Peter’s School pupils and local community to design the garden. For the past few months Stride (Sharp Training, Recycling & Income Development Enterprise) has been creating the winning design and have now reached the stage of planting the shrubs and flowers.

Rupa Chandarana, Community Projects Co-ordinator at Riverside said: “Over the past few months the area has been transformed. The Beaumanor Unity Garden will get local children involved in growing their own vegetables and help with the up keep of the garden. And it’s an environmentally friendly and attractive landscaped area with space to hold events.” As well as the school children’s involvement, Stride employed local young people as part of an E2E learning programme to help build the garden. Managing Director of Stride, Phill Saunders said: “STRIDE is a Social Enterprise that provides vocational training for teenagers. It is great to have real project for them to work on and even better that the project design was done at the local primary school by their younger brothers and sisters.” The Green Spaces for People programme is a partnership between Riverside, Places for People and Peabody that will see the transformation of 75 neighbourhoods across England and is funded by the Big Lottery Fund.

Riverside has been successful in £81,462 from the Lottery for this project, and has matched this with £31,000 of Riverside’s own cash to convert the land on Drummond Road.

The garden is expected to be completed by Easter with a grand opening planned for later March/ Early April.